The Darke Side (Barely Breathing)

by Darke_Amber

Take Two

Author's Note:

(This is actually a rewrite that I didn't want to make a new story for. It's almost word for word of the video/poem [which means I did not write all of this; no credit to me] but I decided to do this in film class today and I think I'm also going to perform it as well. Post sometime in the next month telling the outcome of that endeavor.)
(So here we go. Take two. Enjoy.)

When I was a foal, I used to think that parents always disciplined their foals. I thought that it was the norm. And because my family never told me any different, and because I always messed up, I kept thinking it.

It made no difference to me.

One day, before I realized I was not allowed to speak up to my parents, I yelled at them and got punched in the cheek. I didn’t want to tell my teachers about it because I was afraid I’d get in trouble for not telling them sooner.

A few days later the English teacher noticed my cheek, and I got sent to the principal’s office. From there I was sent to another small room with a really nice mare who asked me all kinds of questions about my life and home.

I saw no reason to lie. As far as I was concerned, this was my only chance. I told her “whenever I mess up my family disciplines me" and I took off my bandages.

This led to a full scale investigation, and I was removed from the house for three days. After that, they decided to ignore how I got the bruises.

News of my family life quickly spread through the school, and I earned my first nickname.

Mummy.

To this day, I hate bandages.

I’m not the only mare who grew up this way.

Surrounded by the ponies who used to say that rhyme... about sticks and stones... as if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called, and we got called them all! So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us, that we’d be blank flanks forever, that we’d never meet somepony to make us feel like the sun was something they raised for us every midnight.
So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing... don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone! That an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there’s no way for it to fester and grow, it does.

She was eight years old, our first day of grade two, when she got called chicken.

We both got moved to the back of the class so we would stop getting bombarded by spit balls and magic. But the school halls were a battleground where we found ourselves outnumbered day after awful day... We used to stay inside for recess because outside was worse. Outside we’d have to rehearse running away or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there.

In grade five they taped a sign to her desk that read beware of chicken.

To this day, despite a loving husband, she doesn’t think she’s beautiful, because she can't fly. And it took a little less than half of her life to forget.

Foals used to say she looks like a chicken trying to get away from the ground but broke its wings trying, and they’ll never understand that she’s raising a filly whose definition of beauty begins with the word mom, because she still tells her daughter she believes in her. And her daughter says that she’s only ever always been amazing-!

She... was a broken branch, grafted onto a different family tree. Adopted. But not because her parents didn't want her, she left by herself.

She was eight when she became a mixed drink of one part party and two parts alone. Started therapy in 6th grade, had a personality made up of icing and pills, lived like the uphills were mountains, and the downhills were cliffs. Four-fifths suicidal, a tidal wave of anti-depressants, and an adolescence of being called popper.

One part because of the parties, and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty. She tried to kill herself in grade ten when a colt who still had his mom and dad had the audacity to tell her “get over it.”

As if depression is something that can be remedied by any of the contents found in a first aid kit.

To this day she is a party cannon lit from both ends... could describe to you in detail the way a pony smiles in the moments before they're about to fall... And despite an army of friends who all call her an inspiration she remains a conversation piece between ponies
who can’t understand, sometimes being "frown-free" has less to do with happiness, and more to do with sanity.

We weren’t the only foals who grew up this way.

To this day, foals are still being called names... the classics were "hey stupid"... "hey spaz"... Seems like each school has an arsenal of names getting updated every year, and if a foal breaks in a school and no one around chooses to hear, do they make a sound? Are they just the background noise of a soundtrack stuck on repeat while ponies say things like "foals can be cruel"?

Every school was a big top circus tent and the pecking order went from acrobats to manticore tamers, from clowns to carnies, all of these were miles ahead of who we were, we were freaks! Broken-horn colts and bearded fillies, oddities... juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire, spin the bottle, trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal, but at night... While the others slept, we kept walking the tightrope. It was practice and yeah, some of us fell.

But I want to tell those that all of this... is just debris. Left over when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought we used to be... and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror. Look a little closer, stare a little longer! Because there’s something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit! You built a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself, you signed it “They were wrong”!

Because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a clique. Maybe they decided to pick you last for hoofball or everything. Maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth to show-and-tell but never told... because how can you hold your ground if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it? You have to believe that they were wrong!

T-They have to be wrong... why else would we still be here....? We grew up learning to cheer on the underdog because we see ourselves in them... we stem from a root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called... we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway, and if in some way we are, don’t worry. We only got out to walk and get gas. We are graduating members from the class of We Made It... not the faded echoes of voices crying out
"names will never hurt me"

Of course, they did.

But our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act, that has less to do with pain, and more to do with beauty.