“I don’t know how to write on anything when you just tell me to write. You need to give me a topic. If you say write, I’ll do it, but you’ll end up getting some short poem about a broken heart.”
-Rosey

Twenty years ago. I was two. It was my golden birthday. I got chicken pox and and a pink and purple purse with my name embroided on it. “Alyssa.” My dad got it for me.

Fifteen years ago I was seven. I was in third grade. I told my mom to put me in public school because I wanted to feel normal. Needless to say, I haven’t felt normal since.

Ten years ago I was twelve. I was in eigth grade. My parents were surprisingly still together. I mean all my friends got to have divorced parents. Mine had to last through an affair. I wasn’t happy. I had already chosen the parent I was going to move out with and was excited for my dual bedroom situation. I spent the entirety of this part of my life relieved that I didn’t kill myself, but wondering if I still could.

Five years ago I had graduated highschool. I was supposed to go to Columbia College in Chicago. I had everything all set when I realized that my parents REALLY were NOT going to pay for anything. I decided I was not about to waste my money on art school. I went to community college because my friends made bets with each other. They doubted I’d go. So I went if only to prove them wrong. I dropped out. I proved them so wrong.

Two years ago I was raped, which we no longer like to call it. The current term is, “Sexual Assault,” had it been someone I didn’t know, and had I not been completely blacked out, we might have called it “Aggravated Sexual Assualt.” But apparently I was more than willing to sleep in this man’s bed after spending two hours of my life getting over alcohol poisoning. (You’re welcome for the lesson on rape.) I then proceeded to spiral downhill and neglect the only job I had thus far, with a boss that didn’t hate me. I had to leave on semi-awkward terms. I was unemployed for two months. (I had been unemployed for 6 months before so this was no big deal.) I then got the job that I just lost. When I say lost I mean quit. I mean got fired from. Its not lost. I know where to find it. 2575 Higgins, Hoffman Estates. Dial out? The code is BLUE.

That whole assualt thing is a funny story. Yes it brought me here in a way, but honestly it’s over. And those that are still trying to save me from it, need to back down. I’m fine. I’m really okay. I don’t need saving. In fact if one more person wishes to save me, I might have to hurt them. As my friend Jace told me the other day,

“It’s kind of something you never would think about when coming out of such an ordeal. Not that it’s worse then what happened, but this desire in everyone’s heart to save you, has got to feel pretty horrible.” It does my friends, it does.

Because if anyone could see me, they’d see what I am. That was two fucking years ago. Finished. I may talk about it, just like I talk about how I argued my way from a B- to an A, in highschool, on a research paper on Marilyn Monroe. It’s my life, let me talk. Don’t try to fix me. I’m not broken, well not in that way. I don’t need protection from the world. I don’t need you to be any different then anyone. I don’t need saving. If you really NEED to save me, mail me an anonymous check. That would help right now. I don’t need a hug, I need tangible goods and services. I need a job. I need a place to live.

I need you to be real. And that’s really where you failed.

This is called officially the sixth worst time period of my life.

I’m fat, unemployed, acne-faced, without savings and with a car that gets 15 miles to the gallon. Oh yeah, and I have to drive 45 minutes to school, everyday. Oh yeah, and the house i was supposed to rent has “severe setbacks,” especially with the, “I just lost my job” factor. Oh yeah, I’m not tan… Being shallow is what gets me through incredible pain.

I’m so fucking sick of being resiliant. But I’m even more sick of people trying to rescue me. Please save your saving for someone who is not as strong as I am. Like the girl with the little doggie. I need a long walk. I need free starbucks. I need someone to think I’m the most wonderful person in the world. Not because I’m pretty, smart, funny and/or creative. Even though I am ALL those things. But because they’d pay money to be in my presence and not talk. Because they want to sit in the middle of a dead street with me and wait for the cars to run us over.

Write that down.