Sonder: Youth Mental Health Stories of Struggle & Strength | Page 77

Shadows (Coming Out of the Closet)
By Diamond Gomez
I was living in the shadows of who I was.
The shadows were cold.
I stayed there for a while.
Am I safe anywhere?
For me to hate myself so much because of what people said.
Why is your hair like that?
Are you sure you need that extra piece of pizza?
Sad part is
they didn’t even know the real me
the shadows were me
just like the skin covers our bones on our body.
So I stayed in the shadows not knowing if I will ever be me.
There are so many definitions of how you could describe yourself.
People describe themselves and say
beautiful,smart,
fun,funny,
I wasn’t happy.
I was lost.
I was scared. Scared of what?
What did I have to be afraid of?
At the end of the day they say that your momma will love you no matter what.
I asked her, you wanna know what she said?
She said no.
She did not love me for who I was.
She told me that’s not me,
so how could I look to the world and for anyone to say yes?
So, I stayed in the shadow.
Later, I thought to myself,
all I ever wanted was to love a girl.
Because with a boy it just wasn’t right.
Eating Disorders & Identity  75