OneDay I remember the times I could have pressed quit, I pressed continue. Thinking that I'm living. Being full of anger, burden. That isn't living. It was just another way for me to tell the time, I'm ticking. It didn't take one day for me to get like this. It has taken more than one day for my mental image of #life to become mutilated and twisted. Revelling an underworld of children. Lost. Alone. Cold. As the warmth of love is fading, we are all damaged. Hiding behind defaced masks, hoping to perceive a false reality. But we can't shelter from the mirror that reflects and retells every atrocious thing that we have committed and become targets for. It was in year 3 I got called ugly. As I grew older the words tangled into complexity. Grotesque. Defaced. Disfigured. In year 5 they tapped a sign to my desk that read "heed the mutt". The ridged frame that was my desk became a battle ground. Between myself and the barbarous students. Somedays I would feel confident. Marching in to the horrid reality that I call school. Sweating vigorously. Met by the smell of hostility. All I could see was a jury in a case in which I would be proven guilty. I wasn't living. I can recall that one day I gave up. Stacked my misery. Packed my sorrow and wore my despair. Turning down any offers to change my clothes. Hanging onto these feeling, the feelings that can tear someone apart. Thinking, that I somehow deserved them. Inside was rough, but outside it was a war zone. I got moved to the back of class so I would stop getting bombarded by spitballs. The everlasting darkened halls, a danger zone for lobster clawed boys and bearded ladies. All of these miles ahead of who we were. We were freaks. Hey stupid! Spaz! Don't tell me that hurts less than a broken bone. That an ingrown #life, something surgeons can cut away. That there's no way for it to metastasise. It does. I found myself outnumbered. One pathetic dat after another. I used to stay inside for break. Because outside, the warzone raged. Grass no longer showing because of the continual impact of children jumping from climbing frames. Clouds and shadows threatening to suffocate the frail. Marching songs filling my ears. Especial that one rhyme. About sticks and stones. Mercy no longer an option in a game of tag. The relief if soldiers getting to the time out area. Outside. I would have to rehearse running away, or stay still like statues. Giving no clue I was really there. To this day, even after the cruelty has passed I am a stuck if TNT. Lit from both ends. Names are still echoed around me. Started therapy in year 8. Lived like the up hills were mountains and the down hills were cliffs. Four fifths suicidal. A tidal wave of anti depressants and an adolescence for being called popper. One part because of the pills. Ninety nine parts because of the cruelty. Away from the torture. The air sterile, bed sheets sting. Doesn't matter that I was there, why I was there. I was hooked up to this machine that buzzed and beeped every time my heart leaped like a man who's faith tells him Gods hands are big enough to catch an airplane, or the world. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I was curled up in a fist protesting death or, that every breath was either hard labour or a hard time. It doesn't matter because my roommate, he wears Star Wars pyjamas. He's 9 years old. Louis. I don't have to ask. The bald head with the skin and bone frame speaks volumes. The game boy and feather pillow booms like they're trying to make him feel at home because he's going to be here a while. My first words. "I'm Katy" echoed through the concealed room. I was there one day before Louis had to leave. Converting. Converting into an angel. I don't often believe in angles. But, on the day Louis left us all. He pulled a feather from his pillow. "This is for you"