Names in this poem are changed.

I didn’t consider myself the most popular.
If anything I was the least popular.

I was only known because my face was somewhat “pretty.”

I dated guys.

To be accurate, I dated six boys. Good thing that only two made me cry.

No sex.

I was raised Roman Catholic.

I was an insecure kid.

Insecure about my upper lip hair because I would get bullied for it by some kid named Ricky.

Ricky said “you have a mustache” and I was ashamed for the rest of the upcoming middle school years.

Ashamed of my face.

Ashamed at the natural growth of my body hairs.

For some reason girls had to have no hair. Anywhere.

I was peer pressured to do my eyebrows because they were “too thick.”

I regret it today, because I had thick beautiful black eyebrows that back then I saw and ugly and horrifying.

Needless to say, I did them myself as thin as I could.

I was even bullied by my own family because of my dark under eye bags. It was considered ugly.

My cousins always reminded me everyday that I was a “bitch.” 

For reasons I never understood. I was only twelve.

I still felt like a misfit. I felt suicidal.

Things got worse. Believe me. They did.

I pretended to be okay but I wasn’t.

Who am I? I would always question myself. 

Who the fuck am I.

One day some girl said something that would change my self esteem forever.

Her name was Sophia.

She yelled at me “you look like a Jew from the Holocaust.”

Let me help you understand.

Not only was this a horrible thing to make fun of, but she was basically saying I looked like I was starving to death because of how skinny I was.

I was basically only bone.

From that day on, that is how I saw myself.

A piece of nothing.

Just bone.

I looked at myself in the mirror and I hated it. Hated every inch of my body.

I hated my freakishly long legs and my boobless chest.

I even started wearing bras that were two sizes bigger than my actual size.

I hated myself because I didn’t look like them.

The pretty girls with the big boobs and butts.

Something that I will never have.

I slowly started to realize that I will always be sad. That nothing could make me feel happy again.

And nothing did.

Until I started to occupy myself with church.

I finally found people who would expressively say that they are depressed and that something was missing in their life.

I found people who took time to listen to others. 

I found people who believed that there was something bigger than me and then everyone.

I found refuge in God.

“I am beautiful!” 

I remember that retreat.

I cried.

The preacher said “there is someone in here that is insecure and that is suffering accepting who they are.”

That got to me.

Real or fake, it made me think about reconsidering loving myself.

And so I did. Not for long though.

And that’s another story.

That would probably be told in “High school depression.”

Where I attempt suicide and meet more douche bags.