I was the black sheep growing up. There’s always one. Never included. Never invited. Too annoying to handle. Too sensitive to be around. I wasn’t enough — not even for family, you see. I hurt long before any schoolyard bullies. They just added to the pain — confirmation, in fact. I was broken from day one. And one day, you’ll understand: words can wound in ways you’ll never understand. “Sticks and stones...” Well, I say they just don’t know how words can run deep — deep through your veins. They follow you forever, scarring, indeed. They say words don’t have power — then try being told them over and over. I still stand up. I still hear their words like a hot branding iron — I can feel the burn I’ve been labeled — and not just by strangers. Some labels came from the very people meant to love me. Those are the ones that burn the most. My childhood — gone. Even the good bits? No recollection at all. When you erase the pain just to get by, you forget to take note of all the good things that go by. And that’s how depression consumes: it takes all the good things and turns them to bad — like a rotten apple left to decay, not worth the effort of throwing away. All my potential — just wasting away.