Monlemeli

The life span of a raven is 30 years. One of it's main differences from a crow is that they are less social and more cautious. I've always loved but feared this animal: I am still figuring out why we are alive, learning that I've either got to accept it, stay in doubt forever or die. When I first started learning more about ravens and their way of life, I realised 30 years was the perfect length to live: enough to make the best of it, the age where some people will make a family so an age where my friends won't need me, it's also the age where your body stop biologically growing and the decaying begins.

I feel like I am constantly pretending, that I'm not who I say I am. That no one knows me. But on the other hand, I don't know myself either. I don't know what I like, what I'm looking for, and how to obtain it. I'm a seventeen year old with the mind of a 30 year old but the bodily connection of a seven year old.

I've transitioned from my period of sadness and haunting doom to over-happiness. Now I don't know where I am most of the time, I've blocked the world out to stay happy. The sun is shining, I can't believe being anything but incredible. Sometimes I forget what I've done until I see a photo and everything comes flooding back. Other times I have to scratch, pick, burn, pull and tear scabs to remind me where I am.

Most of the time I don't even know who I am. I see a figure in the mirror, in the glass of shop window and realise it's me. I look at my body and wonder how it can be connected to me. I see photos and don't believe that's who I am.

I didn't know that starving yourself, overeating, bitting your skin, burning yourself and picking at your scabs were all '' self harm''. My body is a piece of art, covered in pain.

Some days are better than others, some seasons are too. I know this is just a phase, a rough patch but I almost died last time. I can't do that to myself, to others, to my brother, to my friends. I am pushing the limit this time. I don't know if I prefer the calm of not feeling or the battle of staying awake.

So tall, so thin, so beautiful... But did you know I struggle every day to control myself? That I out myself into a box because of these comments, did you know?