Grateful

They tell me to be grateful

For a nice house, pretty clothes, good food.

For color-changing eyes and slim hands that can make magic with pencil and paper.

They tell me to be grateful.

Grateful that I'm clever, that my parents love me, love each other,

That my insatiable appetite for books can be satisfied whenever I please.

I should be grateful

That I have a home to return to

When it's one in the morning during tech week

To find that someone left the porch light on for me.

Grateful

For dogs to cuddle and blankets to snuggle and movies to watch and songs to hear.

Concerts to attend.

Pizza to eat in the company of good friends.

A best friend who texts me at three in the morning

Because she saw something that reminded her of me.

The right to marry whoever I love.

And they tell me that I should be

Grateful

I don't have it worse.

Grateful that all I am

Is avoided eye contact and bouncing knees

And violent shaking after speaking up in class

Because I got tongue-tied

Again.

(Idiot!)

Grateful that the thought of

Eyes

So many eyes

All

On

Me

As I shuffle in

Late

Drives me to tears

And convulsions

And dry heaving

Because I "forgot" to eat breakfast

Again.

Grateful that the scars

Are merely raked across my heart

Rather than my arms

So they can put it out of mind

When I tell them something's wrong with me

Because if you don't bleed for your pain

It's not real.

Grateful

That I haven't yet gone for the bottle of pills

That I know is sitting in my medicine cabinet

Waiting to be downed

Because there is nothing

Nothing

Romantic

About waking up

And wishing you were dead every morning.

Grateful

Because life is a John Green book

Where a blue-eyed boy kisses your forehead

And tells you that you are beautiful

And chases your shadows away

And makes you whole again

And you feel stupid

For almost wanting that reassurance.

Grateful

That I can simply

Choose

To be happy

When in actuality

If I could

Choose

To be happy

I'd have done it a long time ago because

This

Void

In my chest

Has been eating away at me for five years now

And because I can still smile and laugh

People think I'm lying to get attention

So I'd better not say anything at all.

Grateful

For a face that will never be more than average

For a body with too many rolls to be comfortable

For a slight

Disconnection

With my biology

(I'm a girl, but not enough of one

So what am I?)

Grateful

That this self-hatred will always linger on my skin

That I will only ever see imperfections in the mirror

That I latch onto things I said

Three

Years

Ago

And stay up 'til three AM berating myself for being so goddamn stupid.

Grateful

That my attempts at venting

Only lead to the unravelling of someone else's problems

And at the end of the day

They're on the mend and I'm

Still

Shattered.

Grateful

That the only way I can talk about this

Without breaking down into tears

Is through a terrible poem

And there will still be people who don't believe me.

Grateful

Because I have it good.

(Yeah. I do.)

Grateful

Because I could have it so much worse.

(Yeah. I could.)

Grateful

That there's nothing wrong with me.

(No. I suppose not.)