Lowlight of 8th Grade English

I found, also, the poem I wrote describing my depressive episode during the winter of that year.

Down


You feel down,
Down so low it feels like there isn't any up.
It feels like the hurt
Of all 6 billion people in the world
Has been dropped
On your shoulders,
And it's weighing you down,
Even though you don't know what it is.
You cry and cry,
For no reason, no reason at all, it seems.
You stand on the wall and look down.
You are sad, but somehow can't feel a think.
A voice in your head says jump,
Fall from this wall that you stand on so high
Above a world that can't understand you;
Fall from the people who never even try to listen.
You run from the voice,
But running from yourself you can't get very far,
And it follows you,
Taunting that you are too stubborn to ignore it,
And you are scared,
'Cause even though it says jump you don't want to,
But you wonder,
If you listened,
How long would it be before someone realized you were gone
And that you were never coming back?
You look down at the water,
And your heart says walk until you are gone,
And the voice says let go of everything,
But a little tiny piece of you,
The piece that is the real, lasting you,
Says stay,
Stay in the world that hurts you so much,
Because it's all that you have.
So you sit on the wall,
And cry until it feels like you've cried forever,
Like you've cried out your brain and your heart and everything that is you,
And you turn around and leave.
Go back to your room,
Pretend nothing happened for a little while,
Because you are smart,
And your brain is good,
And nothing can be wrong with you.
So you hide it,
Until you can turn around and cry again,
Because you are scared of yourself,
And you think,
What if I took that razor over there and dragged it across my wrist?
Would I feel better, then?
What if I pushed this hammock so hard that I fell and cracked my head into a
Million tiny pieces?
What about then?
And all those thoughts,
of ending it now,
Freak you out so bad that you can barely think,
But you can somehow still feel the weight of 6 billion frowns on your shoulders.
And you bite your hand,
So hard that your teeth hurt,
And the mark lasts for days,
Because it makes it all go away.
The real pain, the kind you can feel, makes the hurt stop inside,
And you can breath again.
You're still down,
But somehow
It's better now.
It hurts later, but what else can you do?
'Cause the pain makes it better,
So you can stand back up,
And go on until your next down,
When you need to get back up again.
And who knows what will happen then?
Who can say how far you will go,
And how much you will be able to hold back,
Next time?
Next time,
What if it really is
The End?



This was the poem that got me temporarily kicked out of school for being a danger to myself and others.

I wrote, to accompany the poem (and so as to avoid the mess that occurred the last time it was seen), a letter to my English teacher.

The letter is as follows:

This poem is a part of my past. I am no longer afraid of the downs mention in it. I did some therapy and all that, and I am better now. I am no longer a threat to myself. However, the down part of my life is as much a part of me as the good times with my friends and the embarrassing moments in and out of school. It is something I must look back on, not fondly, but as a lesson. That's why I chose to write a poem about it. It seemed like an event that needed telling. Because of the experience, I am more afraid of things (blood, height, and deep water) but it also makes me more aware of myself. The poem is me, but it is not me. I am not "Girl with a Problem," I am myself, I am my life, and "my problem" is no longer even mine. I now handle downs the normal way, with chocolate and a friend (which, by the way, works much better!). Don't worry. I've already been signed off (twice!) as a normal teenager (assuming you don't count my genius, gorgeosity, and sheer superiority*). I hope that you will not judge me for what I used to be. I am the same person you have known all year. Thank you for understanding.


Sincerely,
Tea


*I hope you understand that was sarcasm. I was demonstrating the typical teenage belief of the world revolving around me. Plus, I couldn't resist being so self-congratulatory. Sorry.

I do not want to do my homework

I don't want to deal with life, or my endless to do list, or my room, or my family, or really just about anything.

I hate that I get like this sometimes, and I hate that I don't know what triggers it. I just need to stay calm, and keep working, and hope that it all blows over by the morning.

Which it will. Because it always does. Then, in another week, all I'll want to do is curl up in the fetal position and cry, like I do now.

I hate feeling like an emo teenager. When I say that I want to be "more normal", I mean that I want to drive around on Saturday nights with a car full of screaming teenagers, and dance like a maniac to bad pop songs, and sigh over boys, and cry about silly things, and be rude to my parents and talk on the phone too long and maybe, every now and then, actually fail a test.

Sometimes, I want to stop being responsible, and figure out what living is. As Louise Gluck wrote in Meadowlands, "Those/with the smallest hearts have/the greatest freedom" (Penelope's Stubbornness). Because if I didn't care for the world, or my future, or my family, or my friends, or the people who care, I would run off somewhere and die in an errant attempt to find myself.

What has the world come to, that teenagers suffer from midlife crises?

Writing Away

What on earth inspired me to apply to RSI? It's not as if I'll get in- after all, it's RSI, nobody gets in. Sure, I'm special on occasion, but I haven't competed in six hundred zillion math olympiads or won a six-foot diameter science medal to use as a headboard. I'm good, but I doubt that I'm really top-fifty-in-the-country material.

And yet....if I got in, it would be so. freaking. cool. I mean, all summer, for science, and research, and hanging out with other people as obsessed as I am (not that I don't do that already), and getting out of the house for once (if I have to listen to one more phrase about folding laundry or syrup allocation, I swear to god, I will scream), and.....if only "how much you want it" were a section on the application. I guess "why I want to go here" is supposed to be subtext.

Either that, or the great omniscient "they" assumes that everyone wants to go there because it's MIT, and anyone who doesn't want to go to MIT clearly isn't worthy anyways.

I think I've spent more time reviewing these essays than I spent revising my research paper. Which I get back tomorrow. My lord that art in heaven, if thou doth let my paper not sucketh, I wilt be most happyeth.

By my lord, I mean Shakespeare, and I think he only understands fake olde english, so this prayer ought to get through just fine.

First Day

Link: Dora, check it.

Guess what, everybody- I survived. I am totally and completely intact. My dentist even said that my tooth is totally fine, and Mom and I were overreacting. I just spelled overreacting wrong, but spell check caught it and fixed it.

I've been infected with the blushing disease, which is, to say the least, highly annoying. Mere days after I decided that I don't really like Mario as much as I did last year, I start turning beet red when talking with him, about him, or when Vicky endlessly teases me about him. To make matters worse, he's in two of my classes this year (health and science research), so he might even notice! AAAAAAAaAaaahhhhh! I'm so embarrassed, I'm just going to start blushing more. This blushing reflex is very, very annoying, and Julie tells me that absolutely nothing I do is going to make it go away, which is highly annoying.

All of my classes today were fine except for English. I was the first one in class, so I picked my seat and sat down. Unfortunately, both the seats next to me remained empty. I swear, guys, I don't bite and I don't cheat. Also, the class size was really small, and Ms. Seltzia even remarked on it. When I told her that Gretchen couldn't get in the class, she seemed really put out, and wanted to know, specifically, who wouldn't let her into the class. Gretch, if you're still interested in switching (and I don't know if you will be), talk to her. She might be willing to pull a bit of leverage to get you in. Failing that, continue to pester the guidance counselor for the remainder of the drop period. If anyone drops out, I'll tell you, and you can go to her armed with that bit of information. Just, if I have to spend all year there, I think I'll cry. It's oh so very lonely. I was in such a good mood all day, and then, after that, it was just gone, poof, just like that.

It was quite tragic.