When I was a filly, all I could think was, why don't my parents love me the way other parents love their children? It only took me five more years to figure out why.
My parents. My foster parents, Green Luck and Grey Luck, as they were known, didn't love me. I was but a servant, a stress toy, a slave to be beaten and whipped when all I did was smile, or try to make my miserable existence a bit sunnier. I was put in an orphanage six days after my birth, just long enough for the Doc to turn to my father and say, get this thing out of my sight. Why are you giving me this beast, to make sure she is well, to make sure she will live, when you don't want her?
My father simply replied,
No.
I never understood what he meant.
I spent a day in that orphanage before I ended up trying to escape. I could hardly walk, but I ran my way out. I got to a street corner before knocking into who would become my sister Patches. She brought me home, but she never knew what the rest of our family would put me through. So here's to you, family. May you NOT rest in peace.
Torch. It seems funny that you were not the one to burn down the house, given your name. You were adopted, but proud. You hoped you were Celestia's illegitimate child with Discord, and that you may take the throne some day. You never really focused much on other's attention; instead, you really only cared what you thought, and also about money. You were a narcissistic bastard, and I always hated how you treated me. In fact, after you burned to death, I took a bit of that... "stuff" that was somehow always coating your towels, which I found out later was NOT marshmallows, OF ANY KIND, and sent it to a DNA expert. You were conceived in jail, and never wanted. A guard wanted you, but she suffered a quite ironic death of choking on a marshmallow. So you were given up.
White Summers. I actually kind of liked you. You weren't all that bad. You would usually loan me books, if I paid you twice the amount they cost for each overdue day. Needless to say, I tried to read faster after hearing that rule. I had no money. Nor could I make any (legally) at such a young age. You were unfair. If I was within three feet of your bedroom door, you would beat me. If I left my room before you were awake, you would beat me. You had many other rules that would be impossible to avoid, and that always gave you an excuse to get your anger off of losing a favored book, or that one mare at school who turned you down. But I'd experienced it a billion times from Mom and Dad, and after a while each punch was just like a familiar "How did you sleep last night?"
Black Snow. You. You were an Earth pony, much like me, but you acted like a Prince Blueblood. Better than everypony. Smarter than everypony. You were a lot like Torch. No wonder you two died at the same time. I hated you. I still do.
Patches. I loved you. And I always will. You were always prepared to help anypony who needed it. In a way though, you brought this upon the family. You were the one who had taken me home that day, instead of doing the logical thing and thrown me back into that orphanage like an abandoned toy that nobody wanted, a freak, some circus act that would never be funny, and yet the entire crowd would laugh because it was pitiful.
Mom, Dad. Should I even call you these at this point?
Mom. You gave me a home, you gave me food, and a blanket and pillow, you gave me the occasional mane cut... but you never gave me anything else. You never gave me love, or hope, or advice or any other sort of guidance that a young mare needed. If I needed some advice or help, you'd say, work it out yourself. I don't have the energy to deal with you. And then you would turn around and give my brothers and sister the world.
Dad. Dad, Dad, Dad. If it weren't for the constant beatings, I would never have let you burn. But the hit to the face is exactly what brought your demise, and my ultimate costume change, like the ringleader who only wants to show off, but has no audience. You were the one who struck the lighter from me and, dear sir, YOU were the one to kill them.
I may not have stopped the fire, but I didn't kill them.
~-~
Yes, when I was a filly, I hated life. I wondered, every day I sat and wondered, why am I still here? Why do I continue in this miserable existence when all I have to look forward to is another broken mirror? Another voice to tell me I wasn't worth it?
... I wasn't the only one.
There was a little colt I knew back in fillygarten. Ahh, he was an incredible colt. My first friend. But he was teased for never getting his cutie mark, and all until at least second grade he was blank.
I changed that.
But we were still teased, all throughout our lives by the other Pegasi, and the other mares, for being together since such a young age. Yes, we were bullied, we were tormented, but this little twinkle in his eyes never left, and I loved him for standing strong. He's had to put up with me for years upon years, and he's dealt with all the bullies who have attempted to break him and leave him crying on the floor. He's healed, but he's never truly been okay. His heart was torn and gushing, and I attempted so many times to sew it back together, but the workmanship was shoddy and rushed and true, it was still broken. But at least he would be able to hide it.
He still smiles at me every morning when I wake up, asking me how I slept, putting me in such a mood, so butterflied in a way no other stallion could.
~-~
... There was another.
She was a lot like me. She was me. When the house had burned down, an unknown entity had left my body and manifested from the sadness and pain that was in those ashes. I met me in sixth grade.
She was a nothing. She was bullied, and tormented, in so many ways that reminded me of childhood, so many ways that she could drown all of Equestria in one tear if she spoke what had happened to her day by day! So many ways, that not even sewing her heart back together would keep it steady, it would still gush forth an endless flood of emotion and regret.
She committed suicide a year after. But she still came back, all that wretched horror and crying that my family had put her... US, through, could never be left, and she is still alive today, getting better, getting therapy in a mental hospital, trying to put together a broken glass vase when most of the pieces are not that of the original! But of a second mystery, that clouds her judgment and her eyes, all she does all day is feel the anger and feel the sadness that I endured, as she relives all the times that I wanted to kill my family.
Or... myself.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, and names have always hurt me.
There aren't many names that you could make out of Darke Amber, but they tried anyway. I was a freak, and I understood that. But hearing it from people who didn't have a clue who I was is the exact reason that I let it get to me.
They called me a lot of names. Anorexic skank, you're a slut and a whore because you have a best friend who's a colt. Evil, freak, psycho, you're a psychotic circus freak, maybe that's why your whole middle is always bandaged up, like someone tried to tie you away and like a cold or headache, you came back, an awful plague that no doctor has quite found the cure for. You're a demon, a queer punk and just because I was always with my sister, they called me a fillyfooler, a lesbian, all these awful names that really shouldn't have been said.
See, these words that they say, they basically slam into our faces and yell, you're not good enough. You can never be loved. We don't know you, but we know what you are and that's good enough proof that nopony will ever want to know you or fall in love with you, that sunset can never be watched together and you'll just sit staring at it knowing it's your end, knowing that one day that sun will set and you won't have the sunrise to look at. Only eternal night. They push us down and force us into believing that we are not worth love, and we'll never find somepony whose demons play well with ours, and we just shatter.
And when they say such words, you just smile and nod, letting them think they'll never get in, when really they've already broken through the window of your soul and climbed inside, robbing you of any happiness.
~-~
I don't blame them for wanting to die. I do too. But we go out, and grab a drink, and I'll take my fedora, and that cherry wood guitar, that beautiful thing that makes me forget all my other troubles, THAT BEAUTIFUL THING that an incredible colt made for me, the same stallion that I wake up to every morning... and we all pour out our emotions, a cascade of hurt that is made up of "I didn't see you there"s and "What do you want"s, like all we are are tiny china marionettes on strings, and they all attempt to cut our strings and watch us break.
Yes, they did that. And some of us cracked a little.... some of us shattered, tiny shards scattered across a hardwood floor, then they would move on to the next puppet with their scissors made of hurtful words.
~-~
When I was a filly, I used to believe that if I didn't fight back I would be killed.
~-~
And when I finally fought back, I only proved them right. I only proved that I was easy to push over, I would break in an instant, and I PROVED.... that not everypony keeps it bottled up.
Bottled up, the words that echo through me as I dare jam another pill down my throat, another antidepressant that I take to keep myself from the edge, and MAYBE I could join the happy crowds and finally be done with this pill-popping existence, but not today.
~-~
When I was finally a mare, I understood that I couldn't just blow out the candles and wish it all away. To wish it away would be to take apart my burnt orange coat and my black mane, take away all I have become and all who have looked up to, or looked down on me, take away the scars from suicidal nights when the antidepressants weren't working, take away.... me.
But even so, I never wanted anything more than to change the world's sick idea of beauty.
~-~
On my eleventh birthday, my sister bought me my first guitar. It was a beautiful thing. And since I had already spent so much time playing hers, we didn't need to buy lessons. I spent a lot of time out on the town playing it, showing it off with my fedora hat.
A few days later I was sent home from school for not taking off my hat indoors, when nopony actually told me to take it off. And Patches said,
You know what?
And she gave me my guitar, and she held my chin high for me because I wasn't sure how long I could last with these awful ponies watching me. And we went all around the town playing my guitar to raise money.
It made no sense to do that. But it was one of the best days of my life, to spend with my sister knowing everything else didn't matter as long as I had her.
~-~
Don't even tell me that things will get better, because they never have. It only seems fitting and ironic that most of the ponies I know that have committed suicide, all their lives with their parents and friends, only seemed to improve after they left. And I only dream to join them, but I have a loving stallion to care for, one who I hear crying in his sleep, begging for the voices to stop, and when he wakes up, he acts like it never happened. And he plays video games all day, shooting away the voices that will only respawn, come back and torment him each night.
You can't kill your mind without killing your body. I know; I've tried.
A broken heart isn't something surgeons can cut away or replace; it's not just physical, it's mental, and even if they could replace it, the bullies would simply break it harsher, beyond repair. They can fix the broken bones but they can't fix the names, they won't ever be able to.
~-~
When I was young, I used to stay by the schoolhouse door at recess, because the last time I stayed inside I was locked in and forgotten about. I wanted to be as close to the door as I could possibly be, so that if somepony came looking for trouble I could just run to the door and save myself the tears.
One day I didn't run fast enough.
They came to me, these little fillies, armed with words and shields of self-confidence. They told me how pathetic I was to even try to be on their playground, how I should just do the world a favor and kill myself.
Okay.
Maybe I will.
Nopony should ever have that said to them, they should fight against the sadness and against the cruelty. We can be mean, but it's only because we see what it does to us and we believe that if we can take it so can they, we become bullies to be protected from them.
~-~
I've been a bully before. I didn't like it. I would strike down everypony, not care what they felt.
I caused an innocent colt to kill himself.
I'm so sorry.
~-~
But then I look back and I realize, I'm better than all of this. All of this is just a distraction from the beauty that is truly in me, I am beautiful, and anypony who tells me otherwise is wrong.
I believe in everypony. Every single one who's ever felt left out, wanted to kill themselves, or have.
I believe in you.
Because I know how it feels to break and want to die, we are those tiny china puppets and the bullies try to cut our strings with their silver scissors, but our strings are gold and they can't break us any more.
You are not the circus act that everyone thinks is pathetic, not the ringleader without an audience, you are the main event that everyone comes to SEE, they cheer in your presence, and although you can't hear it over the noise, they want to be you.
YOU can cut their strings and show them that they are wrong, but do not fight back. Only defend. And when you have defended enough, maybe they'll change.
Maybe they'll realize what they did wrong.
And you'll believe in you, too.
~-~
And those flowers that sprout around your body, keep them alive. And if you picked all the petals, playing "Loves me, loves me not" you would reach the beautiful truth.
Author's Note
(This is actually a rewrite that I didn't want to make a new story for. It's almost word for word of the video/poem [which means I did not write all of this; no credit to me] but I decided to do this in film class today and I think I'm also going to perform it as well. Post sometime in the next month telling the outcome of that endeavor.)
(So here we go. Take two. Enjoy.)
Take Two
When I was a foal, I used to think that parents always disciplined their foals. I thought that it was the norm. And because my family never told me any different, and because I always messed up, I kept thinking it.
It made no difference to me.
One day, before I realized I was not allowed to speak up to my parents, I yelled at them and got punched in the cheek. I didn’t want to tell my teachers about it because I was afraid I’d get in trouble for not telling them sooner.
A few days later the English teacher noticed my cheek, and I got sent to the principal’s office. From there I was sent to another small room with a really nice mare who asked me all kinds of questions about my life and home.
I saw no reason to lie. As far as I was concerned, this was my only chance. I told her “whenever I mess up my family disciplines me" and I took off my bandages.
This led to a full scale investigation, and I was removed from the house for three days. After that, they decided to ignore how I got the bruises.
News of my family life quickly spread through the school, and I earned my first nickname.
Mummy.
To this day, I hate bandages.
I’m not the only mare who grew up this way.
Surrounded by the ponies who used to say that rhyme... about sticks and stones... as if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called, and we got called them all! So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us, that we’d be blank flanks forever, that we’d never meet somepony to make us feel like the sun was something they raised for us every midnight.
So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing... don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone! That an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there’s no way for it to fester and grow, it does.
She was eight years old, our first day of grade two, when she got called chicken.
We both got moved to the back of the class so we would stop getting bombarded by spit balls and magic. But the school halls were a battleground where we found ourselves outnumbered day after awful day... We used to stay inside for recess because outside was worse. Outside we’d have to rehearse running away or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there.
In grade five they taped a sign to her desk that read beware of chicken.
To this day, despite a loving husband, she doesn’t think she’s beautiful, because she can't fly. And it took a little less than half of her life to forget.
Foals used to say she looks like a chicken trying to get away from the ground but broke its wings trying, and they’ll never understand that she’s raising a filly whose definition of beauty begins with the word mom, because she still tells her daughter she believes in her. And her daughter says that she’s only ever always been amazing-!
She... was a broken branch, grafted onto a different family tree. Adopted. But not because her parents didn't want her, she left by herself.
She was eight when she became a mixed drink of one part party and two parts alone. Started therapy in 6th grade, had a personality made up of icing and pills, lived like the uphills were mountains, and the downhills were cliffs. Four-fifths suicidal, a tidal wave of anti-depressants, and an adolescence of being called popper.
One part because of the parties, and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty. She tried to kill herself in grade ten when a colt who still had his mom and dad had the audacity to tell her “get over it.”
As if depression is something that can be remedied by any of the contents found in a first aid kit.
To this day she is a party cannon lit from both ends... could describe to you in detail the way a pony smiles in the moments before they're about to fall... And despite an army of friends who all call her an inspiration she remains a conversation piece between ponies
who can’t understand, sometimes being "frown-free" has less to do with happiness, and more to do with sanity.
We weren’t the only foals who grew up this way.
To this day, foals are still being called names... the classics were "hey stupid"... "hey spaz"... Seems like each school has an arsenal of names getting updated every year, and if a foal breaks in a school and no one around chooses to hear, do they make a sound? Are they just the background noise of a soundtrack stuck on repeat while ponies say things like "foals can be cruel"?
Every school was a big top circus tent and the pecking order went from acrobats to manticore tamers, from clowns to carnies, all of these were miles ahead of who we were, we were freaks! Broken-horn colts and bearded fillies, oddities... juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire, spin the bottle, trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal, but at night... While the others slept, we kept walking the tightrope. It was practice and yeah, some of us fell.
But I want to tell those that all of this... is just debris. Left over when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought we used to be... and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. Look a little closer, stare a little longer! Because there’s something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit! You built a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself, you signed it “They were wrong”!
Because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a clique. Maybe they decided to pick you last for hoofball or everything. Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth to show-and-tell but never told... because how can you hold your ground if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it? You have to believe that they were wrong!
T-They have to be wrong... why else would we still be here....? We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them... we stem from a root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called... we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway, and if in some way we are, don’t worry. We only got out to walk and get gas. We are graduating members from the class of We Made It... not the faded echoes of voices crying out
"names will never hurt me"
Of course, they did.
But our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act, that has less to do with pain, and more to do with beauty.
