by Erin Morgan

Created on: February 18, 2010

When I saw her, I was walking down my hallway, towards my dormitory room. She was sitting on a bed, in the room adjacent to my own. I couldn’t see her face right away. Her long ordinary brown hair enveloped her face. I noticed her fair freckled arms, decorated with crowds of bracelets, woven, beaded, each a different colour. But they were faded and such decorations could easily go unnoticed.

Bracelets have always intrigued me. I taught myself how to weave them, thread them, bead them. To use rocks and other things to make each one beautiful and unique and my infatuation with bracelets came, when I needed them the most.

I have never gotten along with my family. I never felt like I fit in, even though I tried to go with the flow of a large family, nothing seemed to help. I fought with my three little sisters. I looked upon them as hindrances, when love should have been present. I argued and pushed my mother to her mental limit. I remember stumbling down my driveway, my surroundings a drunken blur and seeing my mother’s kitchen light turned on. Cursing, I slammed through the front door to see my mother, tears streaming down her face as she sat in the limited light of the old kitchen. I remember avoiding her heartbroken gaze and stomping downstairs into my dark, lair of a bedroom.

My mood swings scared my entire household. I would entertain and charm my friends to the same extreme that I put down and fought with my family. I distanced myself. I spent hours in my room with music so loud it would drown even the strongest thoughts. My computer screen would stare coldly back at me as comment after comment from my beloved friends were delivered to my hungry, glazed over eyes. As I distanced myself, I got worse. The small part of me that cared for my family grew farther and farther away. I stopped caring and started smoking. I stopped trying for my family and attempted to re create the family feeling in my peers. But the path I was on was slowly getting worse. I turned the destruction that I used to throw at my family to myself. I loved bracelets because they covered up the cuts. They shielded my arms, they emphasized the outgoing, creative side of my character and blocked out the beaten down teenager with nowhere to turn.

As the months went on, the bracelets would wear out and rip off. I would create more colourful and elaborate ones. Every time I tied a careful knot around my wrist, I grew further away from what was good. My family watched me slowly

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