Barely Breathing
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The Darke Side (Barely Breathing)

Barely Breathing

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.