You live in the clouds and I can’t always pull you back to earth. When your hair is straight you can’t ever stop touching it; like you know the curls contribute to what defines you. When it’s straight, you want everyone to know that you’re a different version of yourself. You have no remorse for those that tease you about being a nerd, or being obsessive, because you love it. You love that you’re capable with a Nintendo controller in your hand, and you adore literary discussions regarding the slightest details in your favorite books. You do what you want, you can talk to anyone, and I admire that about you above anything.

You try and eat healthy but you pick around the broccoli. You work too much and for literally nothing, but you have the coolest jobs and every summer you have the best adventures with the greatest people. You love chocolate to the point of being distracted when it’s in the same room as you. Ice cream too. There is nothing you love more than owning a room by being the first to dance in a crowd. Taking your coat off so seductively when you think no one is looking because you’ve become that fantasy version of yourself only you and I know exists.

At least, this how I wish I talked to myself. This positive tone in my head only stays for a short period of time. Without warning, it can easily dip into a darker, minor key.

Instead, on harder days, it goes more like this:

You can’t get over how out of shape you are, how stupid, how wasteful, and how selfish you can be. You’ve ruined it. You can’t do anything right. You wasted the entire day on the futon. You should feel guilty about it, about the TV shows you spent the day catching up on, and completely ignored the homework that is waiting for you. Don’t you see what a waste of space you are?

The inner monologue is toxic. Poisoning how far you’ve come from the previous, lesser version of yourself that you’ve been steadily growing away from. The tiniest mistake can trigger the malicious voice you speak to yourself with, and easily turns you into a person I do not recognize.

I find myself sitting on my hands to distract from the sudden awareness of my fingers. How easy it would be to dig into my skin, delivering the punishment you are so convinced you deserve.

In those moments where I’ve lost you, you are incapable of seeing how you’ve successfully changed lives, and even twice now, saved them. Some days when you get like this, you’re unstoppable. The negativity rushes out of you like an invisible dam in your mind has burst, and you’re being swept away by all the negative thoughts you were once able to keep at bay. You can rebuild, but it takes an incredible amount of concentration and time. What little you were able to correct is so fragile. In a moments notice you can go from the most confident girl I know, to the most insecure, worried, manic person I have ever seen.

I do my best to pull you away, trying to take a hammer to the distorted funhouse mirror you suddenly see yourself— myself- in.

In reality, I don’t let anyone speak to me the way you do. So what makes it so allowable that it comes from me? I know what I hear in my lowest moments is not the truth. But the constant berating is hard to resist. Positivity can take me miles closer to my goals, my dreams, and my desires. So why do I waste precious time being disappointed in a version of myself that only exists on bad days and only when I believe I’ve failed? Failure is just simply something I don’t believe in on the good days, so what is it about the bad days that makes me believe I am one?

It is one thing to falter on my way towards my goals, but it is another to believe that I won’t ever reach them. I need to be done convincing myself I am anything but deserving of greatness, of kindness, and of success. I need to remember and reflect on how far I’ve come, and use the strength I’ve gained from the past to conquer what lies uncertain in the future. Bad days will happen, and they are unavoidable. It is okay to recognize this fact, but it is no longer okay to become crippled by these moments, and no longer okay to verbally abuse myself. I’ve learned to rise above everyone else, but now it is time to learn how to rise above myself.