“born to quit.”

Hello. It’s a pleasure to speak to/with all of you.

Well, what I’d like to say first off is that I am a devout Harry Potter fan. I have been for as long as I can remember. I’d gotten up to the sixth book before I’d even finished fifth grade, and Deathly Hallows came out on my eleventh birthday.

Which makes me a fresh-faced fourteen-year-old girl.

I must be obnoxious to the core, you groan. Bratty. Spending all my time at the mall. Despising my mother. Listening to horrible music. And, most of all, I must bully everyone I lay eyes on in some way.

Or perhaps I “realize how stupid those preps are,” and perhaps I sulk, and I whine, and I scoff at those brats with no taste at all—despite the fact that I, too, seek boys’ attention, and I dress horrendously in a way I feel is “rebellious.”

But I don’t.

If you’d like to know me, imagine a female Holden Caulfield—only with less alcohol.

I’ve pondered and pondered and thought, and I can’t find one thing remotely teenaged about myself, mentally. I don’t like Edward Cullen—but I find it barbaric to call him a ****** in order to upset one of his fans. I’m not very interested in boys—or girls, for that matter—of my age. I don’t find “that’s what she said” all that funny—though I don’t feel the need to undermine those who do to make myself better (though shouldn’t I? Isn’t that normal? Shouldn’t I laugh in some screeching, false way for some stupid cute boy’s sake?)

I’m an artist, and I’m actually quite good. I’m a writer, and I think I’m quite well. I’m a reader, and I find myself quite insightful. I actually don’t have any friends, either. Shocking, I know, considering I’m such a warm and fuzzy kind of gal.

Though I can’t face it, that I’m not a teenager, I’m not a commoner—for if I acknowledge this thought, does that not make me a commoner immediately? Simply another elitist “anti-prep?” And so I return to my pondering, looking for something about myself I disagree with.

Everything is about dominance, and fighting, and competition, and being better than at least one other person. It’s so mindless. And then they look at me as if I’ve grown and extra nose as I shrug their attempts off monotonously and exhaustedly; How can you not CARE? This is ENTERTAINMENT! I don’t want to fight, even if you disagree; don’t you see? I’m just too tired, I think, but it’ll be fruitless to say, so I single-handedly criticize their tactics—they’re all the same, anyway, amongst every one of them, it’s not difficult.

Nobody likes you, they mutter uncomfortably.

Splendid. Good day to you as well. Oh, by the way, I adore your Gay Pride shirt—isn’t acceptance of everyone just grand? How about those transsexuals? Or a dirty old pansexual like myself? You support them?

Which brings me back to Harry Potter. I saw in Harry myself, even as a nine-year-old—I’d been shunned, almost, prodded and put at the stick, for serious anger issues brought about with my crazy old bat of a grandmother moving in with us. Some people liked The Boy Who Lived; some hated him outright—yet nobody could deny a sense of fear. The pompous air of the Ministry was a new outlet for my aggression. Dumbledore, the voice of reason amongst those just dong what they know to do, and not questioning anything.

At some point I think I actually fell in love with Sirius. And then eventually, as I reconsidered my beloved series, Remus. And then I started loving them both, at some point—and I seemed to be slowly slipping off the radar, giving up my quest for a friend that wasn’t brain dead. I read Harry Potter again… and again… and again. And each time it made me happier, at least for as long as I read it.

And then I started to read fanfiction.

And then I started to read fanfiction with sex in it.

It was a horrible and terrible mess, and sometimes I cried for how disgusting I felt. I was disgusting—I’m a little kid, twelve or thirteen years old, reading gay smut. I wanted to die so much, because I was so weird and creepy and horrible, but still my family loved me, loved me exceptionally in some cases, for they found me rather outstanding. The worst part, for me, was that nobody knew just how twisted I was.

But I couldn’t stop, because it made me—to my much-nagging conscience—happy, more than anything else. I’m serious. Nothing makes me happier than fanfiction, unfortunately.

I still want to die; so much it hurts, sometimes. I love myself very much now. But will there be anybody else who cares enough? I don’t know if I can wait long enough for the conditional love I want, romantic or platonic.