She was tired, so very tired. She walked through life with a troubled head, and a weary heart. She felt herself slipping, and she knew she would not be able to last much longer. Her time was spent staring at a blank wall, writing meaningless words, listening to worthless conversations. She didn't feel anymore; reading didn't calm her, arguing didn't anger her, watching the news didn't sadden her. She was emotionally dead, and passing through life with a quickly cracking plaster mask.
The mask flaked off more and more every day, her smile slipping and her eyes showing the empty shell of a girl. A girl once filled with joy, who loved helping her momma and gardening with her father. A fiery girl, who never once tolerated stupidity. A loyal girl, who never let anyone down, never disappointed her parents. A girl who cried with her friends. A girl who yelled at her computer screen, frustrated with the injustice of the world. A girl who loved. A girl who cared. A girl that was destroyed by humanity, who was told she wasn't good enough when she failed.
She was a person, such a beautiful person. A person that was seen as an idea. She was just an idea to everybody, an idea who was taken for granted, used, and then thrown away. Her parents grew cold, not speaking to her when she received anything less than a B. Her teachers sat her down, and lectured her about the importance of education when she was daydreaming about escape instead of memorizing the Pythagorean theorem. She was told that she couldn't grow up to be an artist, because it wasn't considered a real job. Who was told that if she kept sketching, she would be a failure. She was a girl, a living, breathing, thinking person who was killed by the people that said they loved her.
One day, after many moons of feeling empty, she sat. She sat, and thought. She thought all day, ignoring the call of her mother, even when the woman began yelling at her to come down right this minute, or else! It didn't matter that her mother was getting angry with her, it didn't matter when she got so mad that she walked out the front door and slammed it so hard behind her that the windowpanes shook.
None of it mattered anyway, not to the girl. She was finished with everything. Done. Tired of being tired, tired of not feeling, tired of the cracks in her mask being ignored by everybody. So she made a decision. And when she made that decision, a tiny flicker of hope filled her chest.
She walked out of her door, down her hallway, down the stairs. She walked slowly, as if in a trance, but her steps were filled with purpose. Out of the house, down the sidewalk, through town. A little trail through woods, a paved pathway, a bridge. She stopped at the bridge, looking over the edge into the deep, dark, waters. It was an awfully long way down.
She began giggling, though she wasn't sure why. She slowly climbed over the railing, preparing herself for what she was about to do. She took a deep breath, and threw herself into the air. But she didn't die when she hit the water, for she had been dead long before that.
