You know when I first heard the requirements for this poem,

I froze in my seat

The girl writing these words and thinking these things,

is hiding something that she hides from every single person she sees.

It's on my face, on my head, on my legs, arms, and everywhere in between.

Trichotillomania,

trich: hair, till, to pull.

Mania...madness.

I pull out my hair and with each follicle my stress slowly diminishes.

I use this method to find happiness and to escape from inner demons

Some teenagers cut, some smoke.

Me? I pull my hair out.

Behind closed doors is where this all happens, leaving wads of hair on the floor, pulling until I can't anymore.

It's an addiction, a complicated disorder that causes social workers to laugh and peers to judge and bash

It is headbands,wigs, bandanas, false eyelashes

Eyebrow pencil and eyeliner,

It's not going swimming.

Fearing the rain and humidity.

Hell, it’s even globs of hair that ruin your vacuum!

Incurable, and unfathomable for some, this disorder eats away at any hope of having confidence or esteem

I seem so normal it may seem,

that is my goal though, you best believe.

Girls my age want a car for Christmas.

I desire hair, that's my only wish.

Every morning I apply mounds of makeup, color in bald patches in my hair, draw on brows and apply lashes.

Half an hour of my morning is spent on meeting today's standard of normal.

Trich is an unspoken disorder.

Nobody wants to say that they physically pull out their own hair because it feels good... trust me, the remarks are brutal.

The awareness?

less than neutral...

So what is my curtain, you may ask?

Simply, the ideology of makeup to hide this crippling disorder.

That is who I am when no one else is watching.