It’s funny how much I’ve changed.  I’m 14 years old, sitting in my room, now surrounded by white. White sheets pinned to the walls, white carpet, white dresser. They were blue once, but that has been drained away. I walk through the day, surrounded by grey people who live in grey houses. They walk their grey dogs and watch grey and white movies. I struggle against the SILENCE binding me in my solitude, draining me. I’ve never fought so hard before. The pain awakens something new inside me, something no one has ever tried to see. I go outside. When I get back to my friends, I become funny- no. I become Hilarious. Now, whenever someone cracks a gay joke or a fat joke I can shoot a joke of my own right back. Instead of shying away like a scared virgin, I LEAD the conversations. I can even beat some of the boys. Kinks & smut blaze my trail into feeling. I hide myself so deep behind these lines of dialogue that No one can see me. I can’t even see me. I come home after a day of laughing and shatter like a vase on the hardwood floors.  I cry because I am numb and the darkness has made me blind. I cry because juliet has left me for dead. I cry because no one can bother to look past my masks. To the place where I am hiding, held together like a broken plate taped together by a small child. I curl up into a ball, praying that I will get so small no one will ever find me. Then, there are the thunk-thuds of combat boots out on the porch She comes in behind me, armed to the teeth. Hate yous and Worthlessness are hurled from her knife-filled mouth. Her teeth are razor blades and her tongue spits acid. My emotions are in tatters, hanging like ribbons away from my physical body. Then it gets physical.  She kicks and hits her way to my submission. I crawl away and heal, dress my wounds in cotton and I love yous, before it loops all over again. But now I don’t say much. It's not funny anymore.