Why Can't Someone See?

"I can't go back."

"What do you mean."

"I can't go back to that. To being ignored half the time and disliked the other half. I can't go back to not being worth anything." She wanted to cry so, so much, but she couldn't. The healing tears wouldn't fall.

"I can't go back to being second place. I can't go back to sacrificing my entire emotional state for someone else. I can't go back to bottling everything up. I just can't."

Whenever she mentioned not being liked by people, and not having friends she was always asked, "What about the girls from Small Group?"

And she wants to say that she eats lunch with them; that she feels like she can be herself around them. But it's a lie. They are Sophomores and Juniors; they are all so loving and kind but she just can't say yes to an invitation to eat lunch with them.

Tears are clouding her vision but she just can't let them fall. After years of telling herself that she couldn't cry, wouldn't cry, shouldn't cry because it could always be worse, it was impossible.

On the outside she was strong. She was happy. She was unaffected. But on the inside she was barely holding it together. Straight A's with a hundred and two percent in English, a hundred percent in Science, a hundred percent in Choir, an ninety nine percent in Spanish, and Math and P.E. being above a ninety four, her parents should have been proud.

Instead she got one "I'm proud." from her dad when the official report card came. And she was so happy. Something was finally right. But that was it. Nothing else. Nothing from her mom and nothing else from her dad. And her brother had autism so she really didn't expect something.

But it hurt. The one thing that she did well, the only thing she could be proud of, and they just brushed it off. And she pretends not to care, but there are those days when she's breaking apart on the inside and no one notices.

No one notices just how much she gives up. She doesn't do much with what few friends she has because she feels the need to be around. To try and help with what she could because her mom had a muscle disease and her brother wasn't as mature as he needed to be. No one knows how much she wants to do things with others, but says no to because she is needed.

No one knows, no one sees what goes on in her life, how she needs to spend time in her room to get away from them at times. Everybody laughs it off when she "jokes" about not being sane, even though there are nights when it scares her to death because she is scared she really is insane.

No one sees how much she can get embarrassed by her brother's immaturity. Not embarrassed by him, but for him. No one notices how she tries to stop him from saying something, and sometimes she smacks his arm to keep him from saying more lies, and then wants to scream because she is the one who gets embarrassed because her mom calls her out on it.

No one noticed how good it felt to go to her dad's family and be accepted by them after a long five years of not seeing them. No one could see how happy she was that she didn't have to hide from her own family like she did in California. No one noticed how much she didn't want to return to California where the social system forces her into lonely lunches doing homework or reading or listening to music.

She didn't want to be the nerd called "Google" even through it wasn't a nickname that hurt. It was a nickname from her fellow freshmen that they called her because she knew everything. In hind sight, that might of been their way of calling her a know it all, but she doubted that.

Even her best friend whom her mom would at times criticize, somehow oblivious to be the fact that it made her whole being itch to stand up for her, but was to scared of the repercussions to do so, didn't know everything. And how badly she wanted I tell her, but her friend was dealing with other things and she didn't want to put anything else on her friend's shoulders.

And so she sits here, writing this thing in third person for some odd reason, screaming inside her head for her mom to turn around and notice her red, puffy eyes and cliché singular tear that is about to fall. To ask what was wrong and to not stop asking. And finally, the cliché lone tear slowly falls down her cheek because she finally, finally breaks down and realizes that she can't deal with this anymore. That she needs someone. But never does anyone notice.

Why, oh why can't someone see?

"And I don't want the world to see me / cuz I don't think that they'd understand / but when everything's made to be broken / I just want you to know who I am." Iris, the Goo Goo Dolls

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Dedicated to all who want to speak but find themselves unable to do anything about it, who find themselves in a place where they don't want to be but find impossible to leave.