I have never truly fit in with my peers. In early grade school, I had a good amount of friends my age, but by the third grade I was reading at least five grade levels above them, and had discovered my love of the written word. I immersed myself in literature as my peers immersed themselves in pop culture. My friends grew closer to each other, as I delved into my own world. A world of fiction and fantasy. As the girls fell in love with the boys, I fell in love with my favorite characters. My vocabulary expanded to the point where large, polysyllabic words were part of my normal speech, and I had to repeat and tailor my sentences to speak to my peers. This trouble communicating pushed me further from my friends and closer to my books. I chose to live my life between the pages. It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before I discovered what reading had given me. I had developed a command over the written word which I could use to create my own stories. I could share my own thoughts efficiently and creatively, and I could make it sound beautiful with the ways I could craft the syllables to my whims. Words became better friends to me than humans. Over time I have discovered myself as a writer and poet. However, I have not lost my interpersonal relationships. I have been in love, I have been hurt, I have learned to interact with my peers, and I have had the experience one receives in high school. I have taken my experiences, both real and read about, and told them with words. I have learned from life and literature, and developed a depth of maturity that separates me from my closest friends. They come to me for advice because I have an understanding of issues that has proved helpful to them, in the rare situation that they actually enact it. However, when it comes down to it, the superficiality of my fellow high school girls pushes me away. I have tried and failed to open up to my peers and have effectively, though rather unfortunately, created a vast distance between them and I. Now here I am, unable to connect with my peers on a satisfactory level, and I feel a deep loneliness despite however many people surround me at any time. I have, to my dismay, dug my own hole, — the nature of this hole I am still unsure of, could it be my own grave, I don't know — but I have opened up a bottle of hurt and placed myself in a crippling depression. My own ignorance has been my ruin. I put myself on a plain above my level, and when I finally came down, I came crashing down only to find that I had pushed myself too far away. I have friends whose sincerity I am irrevocably unconvinced, and I have my own thoughts. Thoughts full of pain and resentment. I used to, desperately, blame others for it, too. I blamed my peers for not being on my level, and even my doctors for treating the ADD which could have kept me back from becoming too knowledgable. However, now I see that I am alone because I put myself in solitary. It is as regrettable as the physical scars which I have made on my wrist and gut: the emotional scar I have carved in my own heart.

PS: I have a bit of an affinity to Willow Trees...