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.

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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.

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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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