By Zara Quiter, TIWP Student

I’m happy
I tell myself as I walk down the stairs.
I am happy.
I am grateful.
I am enough.
Ignore the fists pounding that you aren’t,
ignore the shrill screams that you’re worthless,
ignore it all and listen to the sounds of your own heartbeat.
I can’t get the song of this insanity out of my head anymore.

“You aren’t the only one
who can carry a tune,
nor the only writer with a pen of metal.
you’re just another climber with an insatiable mind,
a worthless older sister who has nothing more to teach.”
This is what they tell me.
Down, down, down, I went.

My childhood did not die with my first period,
it died with the start of hers.
In the sun-dappled, peaceful shady park bench,
that was when I became the only one left.
The only one who was different,
who was immature because of a factor I could not control.
Who wasn’t a woman like the rest of my pre-teen classmates.
So I grew up.
Grew up as fast as I could,
skipping steps,
supporting myself on the railing.

I embraced womanhood by embracing anxiety,
forgoing the child inside of me.
I was 11, then 12, then 13.
At 14, I am more of a kid than I ever was then,
because I’ve realized,
because I know,
the world is a construct of tricksters,
pulling you up and along to conform.
Reshaping the lives of the happy,
shadowing the lives of the sad.
What have we done to ourselves?

We were gendered;
playing with skinny Barbie dolls.
shooting Nerf guns at random kids at a park.
We were the prototypes of our generation.

We tried on makeup too soon,
got our phones prematurely,
revolved our world around stress, 
around success.
We spun on an axis of abomination,
spiraled on a journey
with a destination that killed the scraps of our souls that we had left.

This axis was woven by the hands of many,
crafted to be beautiful,
preserved to sing an orchestrated melody for eternity,
with the sole purpose to keep us watching.
Keep us hooked.
Keep us so reliant on external validation,
that we have internalized our own monsters.

I wonder if this might be the end.
But then I remember that even the smallest part of us,
our hearts, our souls, our cells,
they live on,
imprinted into the Earth forever.
This is not a Happily-Ever-After,
this is an ever that only happens after.

This is after a girl feels naked without her makeup,
she says she is ugly.
We all tell her, no.
Maybe it is too late for her.
This is after two people cannot sit next to each other,
because they are not friends.
Not strangers, but not friends.
They don’t want to change.

This is after rejection and failures,
victories and acceptance,
people are saying and saying and saying
You are enough.
Ignore, ignore, ignore.
We hear, but we don’t listen.
Agree, but never act.
Be happy,
I tell myself as I walk down the stairs.
Fight for it.