To the seniors,
This is it. Today was the last day. You've started a new chapter and so have I. One that feels so lonely my heart is breaking because of it. I hope you like college. I hope you have parties, make friends, do stupid things with new people who are so much better than stupud highschoolers. 

I hope you drink to being an adult. I hope you raise your glass to a bright future. I hope you have late nights and late mornings like you never used to have.

To growing up. To being free. To leaving highschool in the past.

Estranged, me



To the seniors, 
How did you do it? For the first time today, I had to tell someone that next year I'm going to be a senior in highschool. The words stuck to my throat like the elmers glue we used in elementary school. One time, and I almost lost it.

I am lost.

I don't know how to grow up. I don't know how to be the oldest, because I still feel like a sophomore most days. You are supposed to be there, telling me how to get through all these classes. Telling me I don't need to do anything in Mangam's class because he doesn't grade anything. I can't be a leader, people shouldn't look up to me. That jacket should have your name on it, not mine.

How do I do this next year?

Errant, me




To the seniors,
I don't want to pick up that pen and write anything to you in the yearbook because writing something means saying goodbye and I know it's hard for you to leave but right now it's harder for me to know I'm facing next year alone.

Ephemeral, me

Goodbye.

Hold on for a second.

Let me speak for a moment.

Don't get offended if I swear for a few minutes.

I am really fucking angry. And I don't care how shit this is, because I'm not sure if you heard me:

I AM REALLY FUCKING ANGRY.

I hate using caps, I hate it when people use them in their posts. It makes me uncomfortable, okay.

But

I AM REALLY FUCKING ANGRY.

What are you supposed to to do when someone you love, someone who you've only ever loved decides to hurt you? When they not only hurt you physically and emotionally, but when they laugh about it and you feel like some lost puppy because the reasoning behind their actions completely escapes you and you cannot comprehend the reasoning.

This sounds like I have an abusive boyfriend. I'm realizing that as I reread what I just wrote.

And I guess it doesn't sound too far off, which is weird to realize.

And unless I want to explain the entire situation to the internet and dozens of friends and acquaintances there isn't much more to say.

I'm just really fucking angry and I'm taking it out on my blog.

Sorry I don't have an artistic abstract poem to explain my feelings of divine rage or whatever.

In first grade I thought I had control over the wind.

Now I'm in eleventh grade and I don't have control over anything.

How did it happen that I was more free when I was seven than I am ten years later? Doesn't growing up mean freedom?

Ten years later and I am a slave to my own life. Ten years later and I care more about the well-being of a gangly boy with too many secrets than I do about myself. Ten years later and 'Myself' is just a word with no meaning because the person behind it is just a word with no meaning.

Hi, I'm Hailey. I love you more than I love me because I've got more reasons to love you than I've got to love me and I know that's morbid or messed up and I probably need therapy but it's the truth and I've finally learned to accept that... And it feels really good.

-----

I'm going to ask you a question, and you might not know how to answer it, or you might be afraid too, but that's okay.

Who are you?

Dig down to the core of yourself, that small bit that links your soul to your heart, your spirit to your body and try to find out what keeps your soul inside yourself with all that blood.

I'll tell you who you might be, for a start.



You might be a girl who has dyed her hair too much and painted her nails too much and can't stand the look of her own face without something covering part of it up. A girl who knows she is vain and vapid but doesn't know what the word "real' means, so she forgets it exists every day until she forgets she ever cared.



You might be a boy who lifts weights and has a family called his team because he's with them more than his parents and siblings. Who knows he's a stereotype but it doesn't matter because high school is his playground and he is the king. Who loves and thinks and has things to say but no one ever hears because everyone says his words aren't important.



You might be a boy who is just scared. Who's secrets weigh his feet to the ocean floor and it's so dark he can't see a damn thing. A boy who wonders every day of his life which of his friends love him.
Who runs from the ones that do.
Who built a wall around his soul so long ago he would rather die than dismantle it.
Who covers his ears and refuses to look at you when you ask him who he is because either he doesn't know or he doesn't like it. But he'll never tell you which.



You might be a girl with hair that is too short. Who wears jeans and t shirts every day and doesn't care if you think she's interested in boys or girls because DID THAT EVER MATTER ANYWAY. A girl covered in paint and words and the tracks of her dried tears because the crying stopped a long time ago.

--

In first grade
I thought
I controlled the wind

In second grade
I thought
I wasn't pretty

In third grade
I thought
I wasn't smart

In fourth grade
I thought
I was an artist

In fifth grade
I thought
He was beautiful

In sixth grade
I thought
I was in love

In seventh grade
I thought
I was broken

In eighth grade
I thought
I'd never make it

In ninth grade
I thought
I was meant to be lonely

In tenth grade
I thought
I was happy

In eleventh grade
I thought
I kept falling



















through










the




air.


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