The Blonde Girl

The girl with blonde hair was just another part of your fragment of life. The first child mistake her parents made. You oversee her, paying attention only when she has something to offer. From entertainment to gifts, the saddest thing is that you’d never notice if she stopped. If she gradually pulled away, no worries, there’s another to take her place. She has everything everyone wanted, but you’d throw her away just the same. If you paid attention, you would hear her quiet cries for help. She has all the bravery because she can look you in the eye and laugh, you’d think her whole life was together. Under the surface, she’s screaming, trying to be free of the chains that keep her in her cage. The cage is made of expectations from family and friends, from school to people, everything everyone expected of her.

She would have a nice figure, only if she lost that amount of baby fat. Her parents hint at her eating too much, but force her to bring food just the same. No matter, she doesn’t eat or waste anyway. Feeding her food would be just as big of a waste of materials as if she had just thrown it away. She doesn’t eat much, doesn’t try to anyway, and anything she doesn’t eat she gives away to the hands extended towards her.

She has the face that’s kind of pretty, but also not. When she looks in the mirror, she sees an ugly monster staring back with her eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes she used to pride herself on, that brought her joy. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, but her eyes are blank and see nothing, red and glossy from crying the night before, if you would just pay attention. If you looked closely, you would notice she would try to be funny with her friends, only to instantly recoil and pull back into her shell. From the outside, she looked funny and extraverted, even to the ones she knew longest, because there is no one she can trust with her normal self. Even her closest friends only see this overconfident girl; she can't stop being that, and they all need someone to live for. Then, who will she lean on? No one, of course, they all are deaf to her cries anyway. She pours her struggles into her writing and work. No one hears her cries of help. Her parents don’t want to get her therapy, they’re scared she'll turn into her aunt. Her aunt was a better person than them anyway.

When you see her in the halls, all you see is this bright, bubbly girl with lots of energy, her hand intertwining with the person she calls her girlfriend. She doesn’t feel the same way anymore, just fears the repercussions if she broke it off. She’s scared to lose that girl, too, also scared to break another person’s heart. People keep making the mistake of crushing on a girl who doesn’t know how to give love, because she is dying on the inside. Her heart and soul decaying, ashes flying into the wind with her screams that go unnoticed. No one sees the claw marks from her nails digging into her skin, trying to keep the voices out. Trying to make another day. No one sees the tear marks on her pillow, hears the silent sobbing coming from her late at night. That’s a part that she keeps buried, keeping it from breaking through. She wants so badly to be vulnerable, but the thought of it makes her shake from the fear of being betrayed.

She doesn’t complain, carrying weights that were never hers in the first place. People’s stories, complaints, and tears as they struggle with their own problems. She was very good a listening, at worrying for others, at giving advice she doesn’t listen to. She’s good at being a crutch that is bending with age and decaying from untreated mental illnesses that keep being downplayed by others. “That’s not what’s happening.” “Stay positive.” “You’re overthinking it,” are the voices that echo through her mind all day and late at night. Maybe if she breaks, she can have someone else to lean on. Some other bridge that’s struggling with others’ problems. How can she continue to take care of others when she can’t take care of herself? The question that everyone thinks, if only they knew her.

She’s slow to trust, if she does at all, but never fully. She keeps her emotions well guarded, scared of the hell they’ll unleash if she lets them out. She’ll look you in the eyes and swear all is fine, and you’d be compelled to listen. She then asks you how you are, and you’re slow to realize that you’re dumping all of your life struggles onto her, but she doesn’t complain. She can’t. People will complain about how needy she is, how incredibly clingy or whiny. People are just like that, built to hate. But what do you do when you’re built to love? When hate isn’t there, but only pettiness is? She’ll take petty revenge and hurt you if you’ve wronged her friends, but let you walk all over her while she breaks. She doesn’t know how to refuse unless it’s a substance she can hold or feel. Otherwise, a small favor never killed anyone. Until it will. Until it did. She almost broke completely, until she remembered how selfish that would be, to leave while no one else could handle it without her? What about her sister, begging to come in so she could take her shower? Her mom, yelling at her to do chores. They never asked how she was. She never complained. How incredibly selfish she was indeed, to complain once in a while, while she was breaking always, while no one noticed. She cries every night, but never during the day. It would be a crime to be vulnerable while children are starving in the streets. To actually sit down, to be able to burden someone paid to shoulder it. But she couldn’t. Her mental health is nothing compared to the friends who are children of abusers. The friends who are struggling financially, emotionally, and physically. She's not that important. That’s the burden of the blonde girl that no one actually sees.