Wanting to fly

I am confused with the age restrictions as it is my first piece. Please let me know if the age restriction should be raised or lowered. this is not a story to be read by young children!

Death Report:

Name: Clarissa Henderson. Born: Saturday 15 November 1994 at 5:15pm. Age: 15 years 9 months old. Sex: Female. Relationship status: Single. Died: Friday 3 September 2010 at 9:55pm. Cause of Death: Extensive blood loss due to severe self inflicted injuries (Pronounced dead at scene)

I am sitting in my room, it is so quiet. No one is home except me. My parents are out to go see a movie, I think it is Inception, it starts screening at 8:00pm, and my brother is at a friend’s house staying the night. It is his only friend, he is not very popular at school and gets picked on a lot. Me, I am sitting in my room staring at my clock. The time is 7:20pm. I told my parents that I will be at a friend’s house for the night but I am planning something else…I am planning to kill myself, to set myself free from the cage I am trapped in.

I was sitting on my bed, next to me was my black diary. It had red roses on it. I bought it at the Craft shop down Birmingham Street. And on top of my diary, a chemically sharpened surgical scalpel, I stole it from the science lab at my school when we were dissecting pig hearts, it was still in its sealed packing. I wanted to rip the packing open, but I couldn’t, I was to scared.

I wasn’t always like this. I was the smart, brainy one in class, you know? The one that always knew the answers, the person that everyone would ask for help. But not anymore, something happened, I don’t know what but it was bad. From a couple of months ago I have not been myself, I have been upset, lonely, unmotivated and I have been feeling so lonely. I tried to stop those feelings by covering them up with the pain of others and a different pain I would inflict on myself. It didn’t work, the pain was never enough, all I wanted was more, and now I am here, trapped in this body and all I want is to be set free. I felt like this was the only possible way I could be free.

It started to get worse when people found out about my depression. They started to judge me, called me emo and talked behind my back. I can’t help what I feel, it isn’t my fault. I tried to keep it to myself, I really tried, but it slowly started to show, the quietness, listening to really rough music, the cuts on my arm and the insane thoughts about death and hatred. The rumors got really bad so I decided to explain what is happening to my closest friends and they said I needed to find help. I didn’t want to get my parents upset so I kept quiet even though I was burning to tell them. So I went to my youth group leader and explained to him what was going on. Mr. Grant (my youth leader) told me that he related to me a lot and that he went through the same thing as I did. I just felt like no one got why I was like this. I didn’t expect them to, I mean, I don’t even knew what was wrong with me and why I felt like this all the time.

I looked around my room, I changed it so much after I started to change myself. The Flyleaf poster on the wall, the books stacked on piles on my floor, all by the same author, Jodi Picoult, and my desktop picture of a girl looking at herself in a broken mirror. All these things made me realize what kind of person I was. I was lonely, sad and depressed. By me thinking of that it made me furious and even more upset. I wanted to be able to live the way I want to, and be released from the cage I was trapped in.

I stood up and walked to my study desk. It was messy and covered in study work, I opened my drawer and took out my sketch pad. I started to leaf through my drawings. I really loved drawing and I was pretty good at it to. As I leafed through this one picture caught my eye, it was a sketch of a girl sitting on the edge of a bridge alone. I remembered the day I drew that picture. That was the first day I felt the urge to hurt myself. It was in class, I can’t remember why I felt like that but I took my metal pencil sharpener and removed the two blades, I asked to leave the class room and I walked to the toilets. I locked myself in one of the cubicles, closed my eyes, took one of the blades, pressed it on my arm and slowly drew it across my skin. I wussed out just as it pierced my skin. I slowly fell down on the ground and started weeping.

I closed my sketch pad and threw it across the room and into the bin out of anger. I ripped open my art kit that I got for my birthday and started breaking the pencil leads. I grabbed a handful of pastels, threw them on the ground and stepped on them. I ripped off the top of the unopened paint packet and started squirting out the paint and onto my wall. I used my paint sponge to write ‘I HATE MY LIFE’ in big red capitals. The paint was so thick that it started to drip down the wall. It looked like I wrote it in blood. I took the black paint tube and splattered it onto the wall. I took a step back and looked at the piece of art that I created on my wall.

After admiring the piece that I just created I sat down on my chair and logged into facebook. My profile picture was a black rose covered in splattered blood. It looked so cool. I went on my profile page and looked at all the wall posts from other people. All of them were people judging me, calling me names and making fun of me. I deleted all of the wall posts. I took a look at the news feeds on the home page. It humored me to see other people’s problems, their problems had little or no affect on them and their friends but still they made such a big fuss about it. I took a look at all the friends I had, I don’t even know why I had them added as friends on facebook, I mean, I barely talked to any of them but still they seemed interested in what was happening in my life. I moved the cursor over the settings bar. It opened up and I clicked on deactivate account. Facebook asked me why I deleted my account and I wrote “I am done living for other people, in fact I am done living”.

After deleting my facebook account it felt like I said all my goodbyes to the people around me. But I still felt unsecure about leaving my friends and family behind. I opened my music player and started playing Flyleaf. Flyleaf was not a band I would usually listen to but the had this one song that I felt extremely related to. The song consisted of them telling me how people hated them and not understanding them. The song made me think of what I am about to do and it told me that I am not the only person going through this. I tried looking for help other that Mr. Grant, I tried talking to the teachers at school. I tried to explain to them why I feel like this but all they did was judge me.

I looked at the clock on my wall. It was a pink one with butterflies at the end of the hands. I got up off the chair and stopped my music, I switched off my computer and went too sat down on my back again. I sat down and picked up the scalpel, I stared at it for a while and remembered that I had to say goodbye to the people that were close to me. So I picked up my diary, unclipped the pen and started to write. “dear…” I was stuck already, I started to stare into the abyss trying to think of what to write. While thinking, something caught my eye. It was already 9:30pm and my parents might be getting home soon. I said to myself “Ok I guess I should write something and get it over with, I cant leave them with nothing”. So I started to write

Dear loved ones

I am sorry for everything, I am sorry for upsetting all you guys with all my problems. It just got to much for me. I feel trapped and all I want to do is break free. Everything would be so much better without me, you guys would live a happy life without worrying about me.

Sorry for everything

Love, Clarissa

I ripped the letter out of my diary and folded it up. With tears streaming down my face I wrote ‘to the closest people around me’. I threw the letter out of the room into the middle of the hallway so when my family is on my way to walk into my room they know what to expect.

I picked up the scalpel, bit its packet open and stared at it. It was shiny and it looked really sharp. I wanted to feel pain again before I died so I lightly drew the blade across my skin next it the others. I was still in school uniform so the blood from the cut stained my shirt. The tears that was rolling down my face was dripping on my cut and it made it sting.

“Ok this is it, the moment we all deserve” I slowly closed my eyes, pressed the blade down on my wrist as hard as I can and drew it across my arm. The bloods started pumping out of my arm, my heart racing and my blood pumping out of my body as the beat of my heart pounds. I took the scalpel and slit it across my other wrist as well. I was sitting there not knowing what to do. I liked around me, everything was blurry and I started feeling dizzy. My eyes lids became so heavy that I couldn’t keep them open any longer. I fell to the ground, I was motionless. Inside of me I was fighting to fighting to stay alive. I didn’t want this anymore, I wanted it to stop. My insides screamed out but no one was able to hear me. I was dead. Suddenly I felt this feeling of relief, of being free. I finally managed to break from my cage. I was free.

My name is Clarissa Henderson and I committed suicide on Friday 3rd of September 2010. I finally died at 9:55pm that night, but my death only meant freedom for me.