See that girl up there? She's Autumn Rose Bobb. She goes to the high school in my town and I recently caught up with her at another Coffee With Apollo event at the local library. Remember? That's where I discovered Jocelyn? (Coming soon: follow up with Jocelyn) Well, Autumn doesn't sing. I mean, she does, but that's not what caught my attention...this is. It's a poem she wrote that really requires no introduction. It's entitled, "Your Definition of "Human" is Different From Mine". Enjoy.
Your Definition of “Human” is Different From Mine
"Somewhere out there, a girl is suicidal, but no one takes her seriously because you and your friends treat suicide like a joke.
And now, it's just a matter of bragging rights like, "Hell yeah, I've tried! You haven't?"
And so, her peers rolled their eyes when she said, "I'm going to kill myself tonight."
And somewhere out there, a kid is slitting his wrists because no one listens to him,
because he's so uncomfortable in his own skin that he'll do anything to get out,
and you're calling this glamorous?
Somewhere out there is a girl with a toothbrush down her throat, puking blood into the shower drain.
She'll die on her knees, and you have the nerve to call yourself "kinda bulimic" because you tried it once in the 8th grade?
Somewhere out there, someone is starving themselves,
but no one will see it because you decided to skip a meal and cry about it on the internet.
"I skipped breakfast, it's so hard being anorexic!"
You read "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and now you think it's cute as hell to be awkward,
so you tell me, "I'm just like Charlie!",
while somewhere out there, a boy is too scared to leave his bedroom,
or to make eye contact with strangers,
or to speak when he answers the phone,
and you think that's trendy?
It's cool to be sick suddenly,
to hate yourself and to want to gouge your eyes out when you look in the mirror,
and depression is a badge you'd like to brag about.
Now, eating disorders are a facebook status,
so that you friends can comment and say,
"You're beautiful! Stay strong!"
You complain to everyone about how ugly you are, but the only ugly thing about you is the fact that you're willing to dive into this pool of fake self-hate and soak in the attention and compliments that wash over you.
You see suicidal sociopaths depicted as cute boys with mommy issues on T.V. and say,
"Mom, I want to go to therapy!"
because it sure seems fun to want to die,
doesn't it?
It seems fun to swallow pills that make you a zombie without emotions,
and to have that label on you:
Depressed.
"I'm so depressed, give me sympathy!"
Somewhere, a corpse is hanging from a rope.
Now, tell me how that's glamorous.
We've glorified sickness, so now it's meaningless,
And if you're so desperate to feel interesting that you want to trivialize the sick just to make friends,
let me tell you something:
Interesting is fluency in 9 different languages,
Interesing is a poem not yet written,
Interesting is an srtist who paints portraits of strangers on the bus.
It's interesting to care and it's interesting to be kind,
But if you're so dull and attention hungry that you think sticking a label of sickness on you will make you "cool..."
maybe you should shut off the computer,
leave your room,
and go out into the real world.
Yes, we're all sad sometimes and,
yes, we all want to be beautiful.
We get nervous when we meet new people,
that's human.
That doesn't mean that you're sick or strange or fascinating.
Somewhere out there are people who really need help
and they struggle to be heard over the millions of teenagers screaming,
"Hear me! Hear me!"
Shut it down.
Realize that you're lucky to be healthy
and stop lying
and diagnosing
and bragging
because it's disgusting.
You aren't helping anybody.
Learn the difference now,
between sadness and depression,
between hunger and anorexia,
between a problem and a dry spell.
You're human,
and that makes you interesting.
An illness is a tragedy,
it's not beautiful or newsworthy.
There is nothing glamorous about a slit wrist,
or a corpse in a coffin,
and there is nothing glamorous about wanting this.
So, here's a satirical thanks to everyone who's made it the social norm to hate themselves,
while there are kids who can't even stand to open their eyes in the morning, while they think,
"Damn, I woke up again..."
Thanks for the new trend, assholes!"
After I heard Autumn recite this wonderful poem I talked to her and asked if she would be willing to share it with my readers. She said she would love to. I asked her what her inspiration was for the poem. This was her reply.
"This is partly my original work, but partly not. I borrowed the basic backbone of this poem from Hannah Ragland and reconstructed it as a whole, and took me about one night to complete. My main inspiration for this was a girl I was friends with, who will remain unnamed for obvious reasons. She would spill her “life story” (and I use that term loosely) to me, talking about how she hand sliced her wrists open right down the middle and had to be stitched up several times when there was no sign of any scarring, admitting to me that she was a rape victim and talking about her sexual harassment, which if she was so uncomfortable about, she wouldn’t have spoken of, and about her suicide attempts. She had told me she was kidnapped on numerous occasions and that she had spent the first years of her life in a mental hospital with her mother. I was talking to her one night and I just completely zoned out. I thought about all of the people who did this kind of thing, who pretended to be sick to seem “interesting” or to grab attention and sympathy from others. I was outraged. It’s literally so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that people want to pretend to have these problems for the most selfish reasons. They don’t understand and they don’t know how it feels. This girl just kept going on and on, knowing that I had experienced some of these things first hand, and just laughing it off, saying, “I don’t need therapy, I just need one good cry and then I’m better!” Well, that’s not how it is, and if this girl actually had the problems she said she did, she would most definitely not be talking about it so nonchalantly. I’m not longer that girl’s friend, and this is what had developed from it. Not only to her, but also to all the other pretenders who like to cry wolf: You’re taking attention and help away from the ones who need it most."
Autumn would like those of you who wish to donate to please check out NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and make a donation to them. If you are unable to donate, I encourage you to check out NAMI anyway by clicking the link above and reading up on mental illness and educating yourself.
I would like to thank the lovely and talented Autumn for lending me her poem and giving me permission to publish it on my blog. If you'd like to chat with Autumn, feel free to add her or message her on Facebook by clicking on her name in the first paragraph.
Thanks for caring,
-BlairieLouHoo
