Why Am I Not Good Enough? Poem by Olivia Vella

1. Take a shower you don't want to smell.
2. Pick out an outfit that will blend in with the latest trends and won't make you a laughing stock of the school more than you already are

3. Put on some makeup so you can't even recognize yourself and your face tingles with an unbelievable issue. You can't satisfy otherwise you'll have ruined the hours of meticulous painting you apply to your face.

4. Don't forget to style your hair in elegant curls. You can't let everyone at school see how your hair frizzes up.
5 shove your feet into those toe pinching blood blistering converse that everyone at school is wearing. You cannot be the odd one out.

As you gaze into the bathroom mirror you see a stranger that somehow stole your reflection and replaced it with a completely different girl. Every part of your outfit is uncomfortable but even though you spend hours trying to look pretty you will never be as good as those other girls at school.

You are actually holding back a few tears but you feel like you are holding back a tsunami of emotion, you can't let anyone else know what you feel otherwise they will never respect you the same way they used to. Or did they ever? Why am I not good enough?

6. get off the bus.
7. Find a group of people you can walk to class with because heaven knows you can't just walk alone but you don't even like these people. They laugh and make fun of you. You know you shouldn't hang out with them but hey, they are the popular kids and you just want people to like you like they like them.

You are in the stocks as people throw judging tomatoes and hating heads of lights at your insecure little head you cannot stand up for yourself because you are alone trapped and defenseless and you cannot stand up for yourself because these popular kids are like the royalty of the school and apparently what they say and do goes.

You take each comment, each judgement, each assumption, each opinion, each strange look, each remark, each criticism, each review, each report, each assessment, and with it your self esteem plummets like a sinking ship. Down down down into the dark and dreary depths below.

You look at all the other girls your mind racing a mile a minute I wish I had her eyes, I wish I had her hair, I wish I was as skinny as her, I wish I had her perfectly straight white teeth, I wish that I had her social confidence, I wish as many boys like me as they liked her, why am I not good enough?

Your peers jealousy is a pollution that prevents a rainbow, the bulldozer that plows through the fields of once golden daisies the intangible objects that crushes your happiness like a bug. A's are getting you nothing but torment. Why am I not good enough?

I've been told I can't compare apples and oranges, I've been told I'm distorted. I've been told I have to be grateful for who I am but going through your middle school years you are on your own journey. To find yourself on a small jet where sometimes you cannot control what happens to you, the turbulence will throw you off course.

You tell yourself I just want people to like me, I just want to be accepted but skipping meals and marking up your wrist isn't going to fix that. you look at other girls wishing you were them but other girls are looking at you wishing they were you.

Society infers girls have to have skinny waists, tan skin, long silky hair, perfectly straight teeth, big butts, and etc.. Society infers girls have to wear tons of makeup to be pretty. Society infers girls have to wear skanky clothing and do inappropriate things with boys to be happy and considered cool.

But society is wrong you are loved, you are precious, you are beautiful, you are talented, you are capable, you are deserving of respect, you can eat that meal, you are one in seven billion and most of all you are good enough.