The Dumped Club

17- This Is a Makeup-Free Zone

For the first time in months, I went to school without having done anything to my appearance. I didn't feel like bothering. I had scraped my hair into a messy bun and shoved on a pair of glasses instead of my contact lenses. I had found that it hurt to even look at a screen or anything that included having a light in my room and I kept squinting in order to see things. There wasn't a trace of foundation, blush or eyeliner on my face but that was the least of my worries.

Sure, it felt weird to silently walk through the corridor without cosmetics shielding my face but I had found other things to put my time into this morning. I only got a two hour nap before I started tossing and turning and I could no longer fall asleep. I had tortured myself with thoughts of the past week before I decided to get up and write. But even putting words on paper didn't satisfy my brain. The atmosphere of the story was so dry and everything so two dimensional that I slammed the laptop shut and angrily threw my uniform on.

It was only us that knew about Janelle's death. Mum hadn't even told Gina and Amy was silent with Jess and Ryan. I didn't want to speak either- all I wanted to do was to be alone and distract myself. The thought of telling everyone what had happened drained me and made me want to run away to the farthest point of the world. But there was pretty much no place in the school where there wasn't a student or a teacher lurking around. I either always had someone's eye on me or a teacher putting up the 'poppet, you need to go outside' type of crap to get me out of the building. I didn't want to go to Room 7, I didn't want to speak to my friends or classmates or anyone- I didn't want to pretend that I wasn't hurt but it was too painful to speak about.

I sneaked into the cleaning supplies cupboard half an hour before school began and got out my notebook. It had been a long time since I had taken it out of my bag and leafed through cringy poems before finding a clean page and writing more. I had always written down notes and poems when I was sad or feeling overwhelmed and it had become a bit of my safety blanket. Words had become my protection and purpose when all I heard was people sniggering and commenting on my acne. Several pages in the notebook were dedicated to my severe case of acne from year six and still going strong. I whined on and on about wanting to be one of those flawless girls who had perfect hair and skin and didn't look like she did the one hundred coats of foundation challenge each morning. But I didn't care. My notebook couldn't complain or judge me if I let loose and wrote down everything I felt.

I started scribbling down a few stanzas of a poem I most probably wasn't going to share on 'Pen and Paper'. It was for my own self pity. Sad I know.

Dead Light

Our light has been born,

So new and innocent to the world

And finally ready to be separated from its

Mother of the Moon.

Her cry is bells in our ears,

Her small body warm and tender

Her lungs are filled with flowers

that will sweeten her pure words.

Flowers, flowers, flowers;

Light-hearted tulips

Flaring crimson roses

Cerulean Forget-me-nots

All bright in the lungs of her siblings,

But fray and dry in the arteries of her heart.

Diamonds stream