My peace breaks with sharper intensity each day. I tempt disaster, for what reason I've no idea. There isn't any particular rhythm to which I follow, save for the tempo of my own vulgar selfishness.

This world is mine. It belongs to me. It will cater to me.

That is my current philosophy. And why not? It's all I've been shown growing up, all I've been shown by living each day.

Ever since my early childhood people have made things accessible to me. If I wanted something, chances were that I would get it in less than a week. My parents were constantly giving me little trinkets, little dolls, little combs and brushes to play with. They gave me everything that I could think of. My current companions are the same way. I hardly have to ask, for a single look seems to suffice. They look at me and say mildly that it seems to be a known fact that they have to keep me happy. That it's not something that I have to ask for, it's something that they just feel that they have to do.

Keep Lauren happy. Join with us, we're here to keep Lauren happy. To protect Lauren. To make her feel safe. To keep her happy.

They treat me like a doll! All of them and I hate them for it. They treat me like a little china doll that needs to be stood up in a case to keep it from harm's way. They sit me down and curl their fingers in my hair, wrap their arms around me, kiss my cheeks. All of them do it. My friends, I mean, both the boys and the girls. They take a certain pleasure in holding my hand when we go anywhere. They constantly shower me with meaningless compliments over the most trivial, frivolous things. They treat me like a doll. Everyone.

And yet, who is to blame for all of this? The answer comes easily enough.

My parents.

Is there anyone else really, save for myself? No. They are the ones who did this to me.

They've coddled me into this way of life, this horrid dependence on others, and I want no more of it! I'm so helpless and no one sees it! They made me the way that I am. They made me selfish, they force fed me every gift, every present.

'From the heart?' one might argue.

A gift from the heart would be a chance to actually sit down and have a decent conversation. As it is, I have to trap them on long trips if I want to enjoy their company.

I don't need 'things'. I can last the longest time without the trinkets and the usual childish oddities. I can live on novels and conversation alone. Luxuries are fleeting, a heartfelt debate lasts and puts a troubled heart at ease.

I would do anything to be able to just sit back in a room with a single window. A little sunlight might filter through the glass and onto the shoulders of the person perched across from me, making them look older, wiser. I would do anything to just speak my thoughts and desires, soak in the person's company, listen to their advice. An understanding, a criticism, an affectionate pat on the hand. I want to be able to listen to their ambitions, their stories, their life. I want to be able to fall in love with them, their soul, who they are, and I want them in turn to fall in love with me. All of our flaws taken into account. The selfishness, the darkness… To love as only a child's heart can. That is what I am after all.

Further more, I don't know anything, and yet because of it, I feel like I know everything. I feel like there is an understanding that I hold onto that my elders can't seem to grasp. An understanding that they've forgotten.

The way that I am living, this body… it feels like a prison cell, some sort of horrible confinement. No one will listen to me when I try to present that light, that way of thinking that they no longer see. They say that it is because I am 'to young' or 'to inexperienced', but why doesn't it occur to them that the way that youths see things, open doors to the philosophies and great ideas of the future? They stop their ears and close their hearts. They won't accept that there are other ways of seeing the world around them. They are stuck in their Rembrandt worlds, when a new contemporary style awaits scrutiny just a little ways away.

Every young person is given this contemporary idea. I like to think of it as a seed that is implanted into their hearts, a very small bud, that needs just a little water to make it grow. This seed lives in each of us, just taking shape until it reaches its full potential and blooms into the birth of a grand scheme or some important calling that we feel inspired to answer to.

My seed is budding, but no one will open their eyes wide enough to see it. Instead they've chained me to their ideals, satiated me with petty things, forced me to remain the little girl who is not allowed to grow up.

Do you know the toll that it takes? The constant chastising, the constant bereavement that comes when I present my ideas, the disheartening way that they look at me in a fusion of love and pity. They take everything for granted. They take my life for granted. They throw my ideas aside. They make me feel worthless. Lost. Stupid.

Little gifts, little praises, little real appreciation or understanding. Little effort. Hardly any effort to understand, to try to fathom the hell that they are putting me through. Treating me like an infant. It wears on me!

Do they want me to be a child forever? Do they want me to be stuck in this frame of mind until the day I die? They've made it seem that way.

Until now.

Now they suddenly want things to be different. From nowhere, they expect me to grow up overnight. No warning. Nothing.

How dare they.

I won't.

I won't grow up. I'll be exactly what they wanted me to be, exactly what their patronizing smiles and gestures have trained me to be. I'll be their little china doll with a child's stare, a child's impudence, but with a woman's mind.

How sickly. The child doll in the flesh.

And every time that I disobey, I break a rule, just know that it was their fault. Don't blame me. It was their fault for doing this to me, for making me so weak, so helpless. They spoiled me. They made me the way I am.

And I refuse to change. Some things can't be undone. Brava my parents, my idle, blind parents. Look at your handiwork and scorn me.

I'm being driven insane! You are driving your already unstable little doll into complete madness!

Don't blame me. I've tried to tell you. One hundred thousand times I've tried to tell you.

I'm dying inside of myself, my sorrow eating away at me like a canker. It's pushing me to do things that I wouldn't normally do. My tongue has grown sharper, my eyes narrower, the anger and the rage harder to contain.

Hit me. You almost did it tonight. Why don't you just hit me?

I promise that I won't break. I can't, you see, because I can't grow inside anyways. I can't grow up.

I've reached the point of no return now. The brink of insanity.

I refuse to change.

The perfect creation, your perfect creation. The damage has been done. The doll is finished with impenetrable, cold skin and a little black heart. Sit back and enjoy every moment of havoc that will inevitably come from this folly of yours. Sit back and watch your handiwork. Your child. Your eternal doll.

I refuse to change.

-Lauren
April 7, 2007