The bath faucet is running, the steam oozing into the cold air. I lower myself into the heated water as if I have just come from battle. I might as well have. I had not intended to douse my hair, but it's utterly impossible now, fore I need to drown. I let my hair fall into the water. I'm crying. Many will ask why I decide to do it while in the bath, and it is because I'm safe in here. Protected from those that brought me here. This is my secret shame. I am crying for reasons that the people who brought me here will not understand. They do not understand because they do not know the reason I am crying. I cry for those people who brought me here because they do not know what I need and what I do not need. I do not need you to tell me that I screwed up, I know that. I do need the comfort of a hug and kind words. I do not need you to make me feel like I am a disappointment because I already feel like it. I do need you to tell me that it's alright. And while I lay here contemplating on whether I should rest my face under the water or whether I should find myself comforted by the blade that will hurt me, you must know something. I am not who you think I am. I am not the aloof girl who does not take your thoughts in consideration. I am not the girl who can be sarcastic and mean at the same time. These are lies. Facades used to cover up what I am. What am I? I am a girl desperate for approval from others. I am the girl who uses humor and cruelty to cover the scars I am made up of. I use these as a defense mechanism because this is a constant battle that I feel like I lose. Lose more every time I fight. I'm a mess. I'm a travesty, a tragedy, constantly breaking into a pieces only to pick up less every time and put it together in loneliness. I don't need therapy. I do not need a stranger tearing every aspect of my being away. I need the comfort even when I don't deserve it. Because I am breaking, spiraling. Every time you cut me you drift a piece of me away. I have not lived up to your expectations yet again. I will never, for as long as I am alive, live up to your expectations. Great job, you have committed an act you cannot take back. I fight for pieces of myself day by day, and always come up with none. I feel invisible, a shadow of those who will always be better than me. I am the empty chair at the table. The outsider who will never belong. The soul who has been ripped apart and shredded to fit an image. And I will stop crying. I will go and distract myself with the words of others. I will be picking up what is left. I will sit down and pretend I have not had these thoughts. I will sit and tell you I am fine, but on the inside I am decaying. Decaying what is me and refining what I should be. This is me...