Silent Tears

She looked at herself in the mirror. Again. That same mirror that she looked into every morning, the reflection that brushed her hair every morning before school, the reflection that shared her pain when she plucked her first stray eyebrow hairs.

She sighed. Why does she feel so sad? Why is she so angry? Why? Why? She’s sixteen years old. She’s supposed to be having the time of her life, a boyfriend, a million friends, parties and fun. Ok she has friends. Parties come and go. But what she longs for most, what she understands least... that which will calm her soul and which inevitably comes with leaving adolescence… is just… tormentingly... out of her grasp.

Tears well up in her eyes and she fights them. She silently curses all those people who have told her she is beautiful and that she shouldn’t worry about anything. Oh yeah? If I’m so damn beautiful then WHY don’t I have a boyfriend? Why? Huh?

She knows she doesn’t understand something, something about her, something about life in general. She just cannot work out what. If only she knew! She would be all right. She knew she would be. She would have to be. Nothing could be as awful as how she feels now.

She looks around her room. When did she get so apathetic? A dinner plate smeared with crusted gravy and a shriveled remnant of carrot from two nights ago lies on her study desk. Ugh. That’s just gross, but who can be bothered, really? Damn. Am I really ugly? Are these people who tell me I’m beautiful.. are they liars? They must be. There can’t be any other explanation. I hate people. I hate everything. God I’m fat.

She turns on a CD, something that she knows will really annoy her parents. She turns it on loud. She looks at herself in the mirror again and cries. She cries so loudly but even she cannot hear herself sob over the CD. Silent tears. Tears of an anguished teen.

(Written by Tania)