The Promise

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life...to March into Hell; for a Heavenly Quest---To Dream the Impossible Dream; Man from LaMancha

Having been introduced to This poem by Hewson Towne, the pen-name for Charles Hanson Towne, in a time period when another one of his poems was about to have an impact on me last year---I thought it was worth devoting some time to explore The Promise.

The Promise---has the passion, the emotion, the compelling drama that Towne's poems possess. This poem tries to answer the universal question about love, if it is true, and if it is everlasting. I have been offered an interpretation of this poem and I will submit it as part of this essay because I feel it is well grounded in how Towne would want his Crimson Red Rose to be seen and considered. This person's thoughts are as follows...but did you see that the flower he is talking about is a red crimson ROSE!!!! And if you don't see one after I'm gone...that means I did not love you...but don't worry it will be there and you will know that I DID love you...and rose bushes can live forever if they are cared for...so then you would see the red rose bloom for your lifetime and always be reminded of the love I have for you in death.

It is the frailty of humanity that has us doubt so much of what we are lead to believe we have. And that craving, and that doubt exists with the emotion of Love. It is our driving-force to find that one harvest of our heart. The evidence of that harvest not only existed in the spring when violets also come to life, not only in the golden summer when the evidence is plenty, "...but 'neath the Winter moon A passion-flower trembled thro' the snow." Even through the darkest of nights where the only light, the only ray of hope is a glimmer at best, what is revealed is love existing because of the Passion-Flower. The Crimson Rose; trembling, is up and visible through the snow. Despite the darkest of nights, and the coldest of experiences---that Harvest will stay True.

The Promise

by Charles Hanson Towne
1877-1949, written in 1908

She said to him, "Unless, when I am dead
From out the green sod of my lowly grave
A crimson rose should rise and softly wave,
Whispering words like those my poor heart said;
Unless this token of a passion fled
Should come to tell you all that you may crave,
Then you shall know I loved you not! Be brave!
That rose shall bloom, and you be comforted."
But when she died, not only in the Spring,
When violets wake, and in the deeps of June,
Her lover saw a red rose lightly blow;
Not only did the golden Summer bring
Gifts for his heart, but 'neath the Winter moon
A passion-flower trembled thro' the snow
--{-=@
Hickok

Marine/Bullet/Helmet;Home!!!

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life...you had every star
every one of them twinkling
baby what were you thinking---Sade; The Moon and the Sky

This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The date is posted below. We must continue to pray for all of our brave men and women in combat zones throughout the world. And of course---we must pray for God, Country, and CORP. It is quite unsettling when something is reported in a public media source and the reader realizes how close to home, so to speak, the information hits. The 2 Marines that are mentioned in this article, Koenig and Gabrian, that referred to their previous 2008 Afghanistan experience------were in our son Philip's Rifle Team when Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 6th Marines were in Garsmir District that year. And as I always closed letters written to Philip; it is my prayer that they all---Stay strong, Stay focused, Stay Yourselves; 1/6 HARD.

Casper native returns to Afghanistan fight an hour after being hit

Marine survives bullet to helmet

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS - The Wall Street Journal | Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:00 am

--

MARJAH, Afghanistan -- It is hard to know whether Monday was a very bad day or a very good day for Lance Cpl. Andrew Koenig.

On the one hand, he was shot in the head. On the other, the bullet bounced off him.

In one of those rare battlefield miracles, an insurgent sniper hit Koenig dead on in the front of his helmet, and he walked away from it with a smile on his face.

"I don't think I could be any luckier than this," Koenig said two hours after the shooting.

The Casper native's brush with death came during a day of intense fighting for the Marines of Company B, 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment.

The company had landed by helicopter in the predawn dark on Saturday, launching a major coalition offensive to take Marjah from the Taliban.

The Marines set up an outpost in a former drug lab and roadside-bomb factory and soon found themselves under near-constant attack.

Koenig, a lanky 21-year-old with jug-handle ears and a burr of sandy hair, is a designated marksman. His job is to hit the elusive Taliban fighters hiding in the tightly packed neighborhood near the base.

The insurgent sniper hit him first. Koenig was kneeling on the roof of the one-story outpost, looking for targets.

He was reaching back to his left for his rifle when the sniper's round slammed into his helmet.

The impact knocked him onto his back.

"I'm hit," he yelled to his buddy, Lance Cpl. Scott Gabrian, a 21-year-old from St. Louis.

Gabrian belly-crawled along the rooftop to his friend's side. He patted Koenig's body, looking for wounds.

Then he noticed that the plate that usually secures night-vision goggles to the front of Koenig's helmet was missing. In its place was a thumb-deep dent in the hard Kevlar shell.

Gabrian slid his hands under his friend's helmet, looking for an entry wound. "You're not bleeding," he assured Koenig. "You're going to be OK."

Koenig climbed down the metal ladder and walked to the company aid station to see the Navy corpsman.

The only injury: A small, numb red welt on his forehead, just above his right eye.

He had spent 15 minutes with Doc, as the Marines call the medics, when an insurgent's rocket-propelled grenade exploded on the rooftop, next to Gabrian.

The shock wave left him with a concussion and hearing loss.

He joined Koenig at the aid station, where the two friends embraced, their eyes welling.

The men had served together in Afghanistan in 2008, and Koenig had survived two blasts from roadside bombs.

"We've got each other's backs," Gabrian said, the explosion still ringing in his ears.

Word of Koenig's close call spread quickly through the outpost, as he emerged from the shock of the experience and walked through the outpost with a Cheshire cat grin.

"He's alive for a reason," Tim Coderre, a North Carolina narcotics detective working with the Marines as a consultant, told one of the men. "From a spiritual point of view, that doesn't happen by accident."

Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Shelton, whose job is to keep the Marines stocked with food, water and gear, teased the lance corporal for failing to take care of his helmet.

"I need that damaged-gear statement tonight," Shelton told Koenig. It was understood, however, that Koenig would be allowed to keep the helmet as a souvenir.

Shelton, a 36-year-old veteran from Nashville, said he had never seen a Marine survive a direct shot to the head.

But next to him was Cpl. Christopher Ahrens, who quietly mentioned that two bullets had grazed his helmet the day the Marines attacked Marjah. The same thing, he said, happened to him three times in firefights in Iraq.

Ahrens, 26, from Havre de Grace, Md., lifted the camouflaged cloth cover on his helmet, exposing the holes where the bullets had entered and exited.

He turned it over to display the picture card tucked inside, depicting Michael the Archangel stamping on Lucifer's head. "I don't need luck," he said.

After his moment with Gabrian, Koenig put his dented helmet back on his head and climbed the metal ladder to resume his rooftop duty within an hour of being hit.

"I know any one of these guys would do the same," he explained. "If they could keep going, they would."

Reprinted with permission. Visit online.wsj.com.
--{-=@
Hickok

Roads to Moscow~~Amber~~Orchestral Fade

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life...I know that love will come (that love will come)
Turn it all around---Sade; Soldier of Love.

Roads to Moscow ~~~~Al Stewart

Roads to Moscow is a side-two selection from the early 70's sensation, Al Stewart. Remembered mostly for music like "In The Year of The Cat", The Roads to Moscow deserves much more recognition than it ever was given. In Ballad form, it depicts the ability of the Russians, with their landmark stand they took at Stalingrad, to overcome the Nazi Germany effort to make this hallowed culture, theirs.The legendary General Guderian and his Tiger Tank Divisions were expected to bring Russia to its knees just as the 01 Sept 39 Blitzkreig brought Poland to its knees. Stewart used vividly metaphoric lyrics to evoke images that almost brings to life their struggles. Stewart's ability to blend Napoleon's failure at this folly, as a mirrored reflection, further substantiates how the lyrics, music, and background chorus draws the listener into the cause of ridding Holy Mother Russia of these infidels.

And then there is the ultimate cold irony of how your Life's sealed-fate, rests in the balance.

With the song coming out in 1972 and the Western World already fatigued with the Viet-Nam Conflict, a ballad depicting the struggles of another armed conflict was not what the pop culture was receptive to.

As Fallonites who attended Father McGee's World Cultures Classes---where the emphasis was on Holy Mother Russia--- this Web Blog is dedicated to the always pleasant, Father McGee!!!

Even as this ballad is dedicated to the fierce Russian pride that was the driving force in expelling Germany from its borders, there has always been, at least for me, this one nagging question.

Who is this Amber(...And the evening sings in a voice of amber), Al Stewart refers to in his music. Is Amber just a convenient lyricist's nuance???? Or is Amber---an Agnes, a Malaine, a Rya; a forbidden Love, an elusive Love, a Love not yet consumed???

The ages are filled with such desperate souls searching for the heart; the essence of their very existence, of their fulfillment. Does that soul wonder through the 'NETHER'-world forever, or does Fate intervene and answer the quest.

Roads to Moscow

Al Stewart

They crossed over the border the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood - word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and our knees
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the smoke on the breeze
All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolyensk and Viyasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come - riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the snow on the breeze
In the footsteps of Napoleon the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow,
Standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outposts, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know
Which way to turn, which way to look, you'll never see us
As we're stealing through the blackness of the night
You'll never know, you'll never hear us
And the evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning road leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming
Two broken Tigers on fire in the night flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home it'll almost be spring
The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin
Ah, quickly we move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down
And all that I ever was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening now it's the end of the dream
I'm coming home, I'm coming home
Now you can taste it in the wind, the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask me of the time
That I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
"They only held me for a day, a lucky break", I say;
They turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know
Why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers
"Never"
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever

Hickok
PS!!! This song is haunting, too---in that it ends with an eerily familiar-sounding orchestral fade. And the fade is that of how Airborne/D H L's cavernous building---with all its air-vent apparatus running---would sound like when one would first walk in at 05:30AM!!!!! So when I hear the end of the song---it is like I'm still caning-in, to clock in.

The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life...
Nastasha Bedingfield..AN G E L...Just like the moon I'll step aside And let your sun shine While I follow behind

One of my favorite radio programs that I enjoy listening to can be found mornings on N P R. It is called On-Point, and is hosted by Tom Ashbrook. This last Wednesday, 3 Feb 2010, his 11AM segment featured Eve Ensler. For the uninformed, like me, Eve is the author of the 1996 literary sensation "The Vagina Monologues". On this day, Eve was devoting time talking about her new book---"I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World." I was taken into a world that had me stop dead in my workaday world tracks. The dialogue between her and Ashbrook was riveting. Her insights into the feminine gender were both profound on the one hand--and yet, so obvious on the other. The baring of the soul of this "I Am an emotional Creature" is when and how Eve reads aloud an excerpt of Chapter One. It is in Her intonations that THE TRUTH is uncovered. Did I get choked up??? A couple of times. This can be still listened to(and I recommend it) because I did so this Saturday AM to get some more of the info and flavor of this very very important discussion on womanhood, femininity, and sexuality. Go to www.npr.org. Go to PROGRAMS tab; click. Then click the On-Point link that appears. Find the Eve Ensler link---and the 'listen-to' link, and click. The cornucopia of their sexuality and their femininity, is their EMOTIONS.

EXCERPT

Chapter One

Section I

YOU TELL ME HOW TO BE A GIRL IN 2010

Questions, doubt, ambiguity, and dissent
have somehow become very unmasculine.
Authoritarian maniacs are
premiers, czars, and presidents.
Each one is more righteous than the next.
Each town they bomb
each human they kill
is done for “humanitarian” purposes.
People don’t own the water in their own village
and they certainly don’t own the diamonds and gold.
Millions are forced to make dinner out of garbage and dust
while Russian businessmen and movie stars
are buying 500-million-euro villas on Côte Sud.
Bees have stopped making honey.
People are drilling in all the wrong places.
The U.S., Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Norway all claim the Arctic
but none of them seem to care that the polar bears are drowning.
They are fingerprinting, photographing our licenses and teeth.
Big Brother is now in our phones, our pods, our PCs.
Not one of us feels even a little safer.
New Age mental health providers turn
out to be former war torturers with beards.
And the pope in a dress showing off his
ermine trim and cuffs
is telling everyone that
people kissing people they love is the greatest evil.
A woman running for U.S. vice president
believes in creationism
but not global warming.
Why is everyone so much more afraid of sex
than SCUD missiles?
And who decided God wasn’t into pleasure?
And if the hetero nuclear family is so great
how come everyone is fleeing it
or paying their life savings just
to sit in a room with a stranger and cry about it?
The Iraq war cost nearly $3 trillion.
I can’t even count that high
but I know
that money could have
would have
ended poverty in general
which would have canceled terrorism.
How come we have money to kill
but no money to feed or heal?
How come we have money to destroy
but no money for art and schools?
The fundamentalists now have
billion-dollar private armies.
The Taliban is back
but never went away.
Women are burned, raped, bludgeoned, sold,
starved, and buried alive
and still don’t know they are the majority.
Water is clearly nearly running out
but even in the desert where there’s serious drought
the golf courses are green and lush
and the swimming pools are full of water
for the twelve rich people who might decide to come.
Special people adopt hand-picked babies in faraway lands.
Their flights there cost more
than the babies’ parents made
this year.
Why don’t they just give it to them?
Slavery is back
but never went away.
Just ask anyone who’s been whipped
how deep the legacy.
Six million dead in the Congo
and they never made the news,
and don’t tell me it doesn’t have
to do with color
and minerals.
Poor folks are dying first
From hurricanes
Shame
Tsunamis
Radiation
Pollution
Floods
And neglect.
Rich folks
just put up fancier super-electrified gates
on their private perfect cities.
Everyone’s having “benefits”
and throwing fancy parties
with lots of swag
so the rich people feel good about giving
away the tiny little bit of the whole lot they have.
But no one really wants to change anything.
If you really want it
you have to give something up
like everything
and then those that have, wouldn’t,
and then who would they be?
And that’s too complicated
so they write checks
and keep doing the same old things.
Selling change.
Making revolution profitable.
Corporations own everything anyway
even our hippie jeans, memory cells, and rain.
Why do so many women leaders look like Margaret Thatcher
and act even meaner?
Why doesn’t anyone remember anything?
And how come rich bad people
get paid lots of money to give speeches
and poor bad people are tortured
and in prisons?
Is there anyone in charge?
Or is this whole thing spinning out until it explodes
or dissolves?
And if there is something we can do
why aren’t we doing it?
What happened to fury?
What happened to accuracy
or accountability?
What happened to not showing off your wealth?
What happened to kindness?
What happened to teenagers rebelling
instead of buying and selling?
What happened to teenagers kissing
instead of blogging and dissing?
What happened to teenagers marching
and refusing
instead of exploiting and using?
I want to touch you in real time
not find you on YouTube,
I want to walk next to you in the mountains
not friend you on Facebook.
Give me one thing I can believe in
that isn’t a brand name.
I’m lonely.
I’m scared.
Girls younger than me are giving blowjobs
in homeroom
and they don’t even know it’s sex.
They just want to be popular
and get some respect.
Most girls my age are taking pills
or not getting out of bed
or eating or starving
or getting nose jobs or implants
or getting cut
or twittering away
or covering themselves
or desperate for a way
to be awake without faking
to be alive without freaking
to be serious
to be true
to even think of loving someone
when we’re already doomed.
You tell me how to be a girl in 2010
I say let’s go for it
if it’s all coming down.
I say let’s speak it
let’s fight it
let’s right it
there’s nothing to hold on to
if it’s already gone.
They left it to us.
It sucks but it’s true.
It’s you and me baby.

LET ME IN
Suburbs, USA
Oh God. I hate it when they act like that.
“Sit down. Shut up. Stop embarrassing me. Please!”
Don’t worry!
I don’t say this out loud. God no. Only in my head. These are my friends . . . supposedly.
“Oh God. Please stop. You are so utterly immature.”

I hate it when all those people look at me.

Not like them. They’re always showing off. They’re not so sure of themselves when they’re alone. But in the posse—giddy up.

It’s hopeless. I can’t keep up. I’m always one Marc Jacobs, one Juicy Couture behind.

There’s Julie.

“Hi hi.” Kiss kiss.

She hates my guts. Look at her cruising my once-something-now-so-over boot. I wish my feet were leaves. Blow away. I bought the brown leather riding boots like you said. Even though I’m allergic to horses and I didn’t have the money. Or I should say my mother didn’t. She’s a temp secretary and sometimes for weeks doesn’t even get called. I got hysterical in the shoe store. Started hyperventilating on the floor. My mother was so embarrassed that she paid.

But then they changed right after that. Julie says riding boots are so pre-Britney. It’s all about purple UGGs. My mother will not even consider it. She doesn’t get it. She constantly jeopardizes my position. I mean she’s the reason I can’t keep up. I hate my mother and I hate these painful riding boots even more. To be honest I didn’t like them in the first place. Now I just look like a stupid girl without a pony.

Oh God, Julie just can’t stop.

“Cut it out, okay? I got the drop circle earrings like you said and the . . . Just stop checking me out.”

Don’t worry. I don’t say this out loud. Only in my head. They are my friends . . . supposedly.

Julie now hates every bit of me. It happened yesterday. I completely blew it. I was accidentally nice to Wendy Apple in front of them. I forgot and hugged her right there. I lost myself. Wendy is so out. She’s got wild hair and her family lives in this ugly house and she has the dumbest laugh. She can’t help herself and she really doesn’t care. To be honest, I sort of like Wendy. Well, I admire her. She’s pretty sarcastic and draws these amazing pictures of slutty angels who are always falling from somewhere like outer space. But it’s familiar.

Julie says she’s not like us. Well, them. Julie saw me hug Wendy and did the big eyeball roll in front of all of the posse like I was demented or pathetic and then she turned her back on me. So did they. Like her backup dancers.

So I got mad at Wendy. I shoved her a little and turned my head and told Wendy to stay away from me. She just looked at me, stared in shock like I was an alien. Then she started crying. That made me feel pretty shitty because I kind of like her a lot. But it made Julie like me again. Later Julie gave me the same kind of glitter lipstick that Beyoncé wore at the MTV music awards. Julie only used it for two weeks.

But she is suspicious. So are the others. The word is out. It’s because of my clunky boots and my tits. Well, my lack of them. Julie is stacked and that’s why all the greatest guys are after her. She and Bree rule the posse. They don’t go anywhere apart. Even to pee. I saw them go into the toilet together. They were laughing real loud and we were all wondering if it was us they were laughing at. Wendy told me they had padded bras and went all the way. That’s why the guys like them so much. But Julie is genuinely pretty and very skinny. Her stomach is totally wholly abbed and flat like Gwen Stefani’s and she’s got that “I can’t help it if I’m perfect” smile. Bree’s hair is actually a little frizzy but she’s got perfect breasts and the coolest voice all deep like Miley and she doesn’t even have to fake it. She was born like that. Bree brought me into the posse ’cause I helped her with her history exam. She definitely regrets it now. I am the contaminator. Loser-girl virus. It spreads so fast, and once you get it you’re forever dead and ugly.

Oh God. Look at them. They can’t even go to the vending machine without each other. Aren’t they happy?

I shouldn’t be telling you this. Breaking confidentiality. Totally illegal. We signed this posse agreement, really cool like

Angelina Jolie’s personal assistants do.

But sometimes I want to say:

“Grow up. Be real. Stop pretending. Leave me alone.”

Don’t worry, I don’t say this out loud. Only in my head. These are my friends . . . supposedly.

But the reason they hate Wendy Apple so much is ’cause she was one of them once. Higher up than Bree. I mean, she could have been a Julie. What Wendy did was like a revolutionary. She just gave it up. I mean, she walked away. She said it was stupid. And she told everyone their secrets. Even the ugliest and fattest girls know about their padded bras. Julie and Bree tried to sue. But the posse agreement didn’t really hold up in high school court.

I can’t believe it. Julie and Bree are all over Amber. That’s because of Amber’s older brother who Julie is suddenly dating. Amber made this happen, and so now Julie is just worshipping her. I mean, God, you would think Amber would be embarrassed. Two weeks ago Julie and Bree humiliated her in the locker room, did the posse circle in the shower when Amber was naked and we all laughed at her body.

You know Wendy wrote me a note in third period and said she wasn’t crying for herself. She said she was crying for me ’cause I started out so nice and now I am so desperate. But I’m not funny like Wendy or talented. I am so tragically in the middle. Not one outstanding characteristic. I have nothing going for me . . . but them.

Wait a minute. There’s no more room at the table. Tiffany was supposed to get there first and save me a seat. But Tiffany is sitting in between Julie and Bree.

Oh God, look at my boots—?they are so stupid. And my hair, I hate it. My mother can’t even get work as a typist. I’m just a pathetic blob of middle girl.

“Please don’t do this. Make room at the table. Tiffany, what about my seat? Don’t squeeze me out. Tiffany, stop pretending I’m not here. Oh look, look. Julie is braiding your hair. So now you’re Julie’s friend. Tiffany! Tiffany, turn around! I am here. I am not dead. What? What?”

Bree is motioning them to cut me off. They’re giving me the posse slam.

“Don’t do that. Bree, remember I helped you pass the exam? I gave you the answers and risked my ass. Listen. I don’t like these riding boots. I bought them for you. I know you were really generous to let me in because I am so utterly insignificant. I know I don’t have breasts. I’ll get the UGGs. I promise. I won’t be nice to people you hate. I’ll do whatever you want. Please. Please just let me sit down. Make room on the bench. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in!!”

Oh God. Everyone is looking. I must be really screaming. It’s in the cafeteria and not just in my head.

“Let me in. Make room on the bench.”

(Tantrum)

“I can’t do it, Julie. I can’t keep up. I will never be invited. I won’t ever get the guy. My hair is stringy and ugly and my breasts don’t exist. I am a piece of shit shit shit. Let me in. Let me in.”

(She collapses.)

(She wakes up.)

I wake up at Wendy’s. There is incense burning that smells like fruit. Apples, I think. Right. Wendy Apple. I don’t remember how I got here. Wendy is sitting next to the bed, drawing a picture of me as an angel in transition. She says I have hit bottom. And that it feels terrible now. But I am lucky it has happened so young. She says she will be my friend if I can stop worrying about being popular. She says there are others who don’t fit in and I will like them better. She says there is another world and the door is open. She says she can help.

Wendy laughs and it’s too loud. I want to be pretty. Wendy is incredibly kind. I want to be skinny. Wendy is on the outside. And I am no one. Wendy is by my bed and she is drawing my picture.

WHAT DON’T YOU LIKE ABOUT BEING A GIRL?

Girls can’t control anything
Boys can do anything they want
My brother is adored,
I am ignored
My boobs, people talking about my boobs
People assuming you can’t do something
My boobs, it all changed with my boobs
Blood, cramps, seven days
People thinking you are weak
A girl can get pregnant
You have to do your hair
You have to remove your hair
Wash and iron clothes
More chance of being raped
Have to take care of husbands and kids
Girls can’t work even though
they are educated.