I Am Kate

• Kate Gay, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2008

I am Kate
I am the left over pieces from a plan that never made it.
And the simplicity, I seek that was stolen away from me, the perfect serenity I will never have, the perfect insanity I will never be rid of, and the outrageous goals I will never reach.
I am Kate
I am as much a teenager as I am a ping pong ball, bouncing from wall to wall
I just want to drift, see where the wind carries me, and see where I end up.

I am Kate
As winter turns to spring, and the snow clears to uncover the flowers that were choked under the cold, I am uncovered as the shattered glass heart you found under the tree. The tree that had those birds, the birds that sang to the wind as it spun its lies of freedom and the so called ‘joy’ that life brings.

I am Kate
I am one with that wind, the lies that it told me, it promised me a life of joy; instead I have a life of despair. I am crushed under the weight of the world, and the other people’s lives that I have to support.

I am Kate
I live in the shadow of another person’s beauty, it will never be my own and as long as I am haunted, I will never be alone.
My world is different, I don’t run from the darkness, I run into it. I seek the darkness to find my place and to live in the comfort it provides.

I am Kate
You are most likely everything I am not, you are beautiful, confident and a liar.
All these things I am not. While other girls wanted to do ballet, I wanted to sit here, writing this, for I cannot do anything better.

I am Kate
I am lost, between the lines I did not draw. And the words I never spoke came out as daggers that stab into the hearts of which I never knew. I will always be lost. Passed around like a bad story, like this story. My story.
I am Kate, for the 8th time. I just thought I may inform you. That every lie you spread hurts me more. I just want you to know, I am Kate.