I doubt trees are ever told to 'be the screwed-up ninth-grader.'

I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?

Because I am still a little girl who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and you.

I wish adults would spend less energy freaking out about the cutting itself and work harder to understand what drives kids to self-harm.

Sometimes I think high school is one long hazy activity: if you are tough enough to survive this, they'll let you become an adult. I hope it's worth it.

They say they have noticed me drawing. I almost tell them right then and there. They noticed.

Used to be that my whole body was my canvas-hot cuts licking my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs.