I have brittle bones it seems

“I have brittle bones it seems, I bite my tongue and I torch my dreams. I have a little voice to speak with, and a mind of thoughts and secrecy. Things cannot be reversed, we learn from the times that we are cursed, that things cannot be reversed, learn from the one’s we fear the worst, and learn from the one’s we hate the most…”

This song is so hard to listen to. It cuts deep into me. It makes me feel scared, and like a child, and weak, and vulnerable, and then it makes me feel angry, and the picture of the young girl is disturbing when I listen to the words.

How can people hurt children. How can they not care that they’re afraid? I hate abuse! I hate that a man my parents trusted would use me. I hate to think how it’s happened to so many girls. And I hate that the pain doesn’t stop there. It leads to what this song is talking about. To the pattern that I could never get out of. Of thinking I wasn’t worth anything, so it was fine for boys to use me. Fine for them to say “You’re to old to be so shy,” and I would nod and try to be what they wanted. Try to be loved.

I find it hard to listen to because I feel like the artist is singing back my story right at me, and it’s painful to hear. I can see images of abuse, and children being too helpless and young to understand. I can see myself growing up, being thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and wanting so badly to be loved that I would try to find it in the worst places and put trust in people I shouldn’t have. I was the girl who said “I’ll do whatever you say to me in the dark,” all because I was ” scared [I’d] be torn apart” by the memory of “a wolf in the mask of a familiar name on a birthday card.”

The worst part isn’t the memories. The worst part is that I can see that my entire life I have done things and let people do things to me all because I had this image of myself as worthless, and weak, and fearful. I was so desperate to have the memories taken away that I would pile more and more bad experiences on top of the others. I came to know that I wasn’t someone who could be loved. I was only someone who boys would use and then leave.

“I’ll never be your lover. I’ll only bring the heat. company under covers. filling the space in your sheets.”

It’s hard to looking back and seeing how the lie was forced on me from the very beginning. And I ate it up so willingly because I was little and I trusted. I just wish I would have payed better attention to the other voices in my life. My mom and dad always told me I was beautiful and loved…I guess my fears and depression got in the way. Or maybe just growing up got in the way! It’s hard as hell. I stopped being honest with them and sought out love in other places. With boys that never cared about me, and friends that only wanted the surface of me.

Hearing this song makes me sad because I know that so many girls battle with the same feelings. Not just girls with depression or anxiety, but all girls! The world tells them their not good enough, and not worth loving. But they are!

I’m happy I realize that now, though I admit it’s still a battle, and so many times I fall into the trap of not valuing myself. But I have people who love me to remind me, and I listen to them over the lies my mind tries to tell me, and over the memories.

I’m not what I’ve done, or what’s been done to me, I’m who I am inside. I am what I love, and who loves me. And that’s good enough for now.