Six pounds,
six ounces,
that's me, screaming,
my face as red as a ripe tomato,
the patient making the most noise in the whole hospital.
I'm blind in one eye,
my arms are too small for the I.V.,
but there's nothing wrong with my voice, which can be heard down the hall.
Mom named me after Lady Aerin
who was a dragon slayer in a book she read once.
I'm nothing like that.
I'm just your average teenager with acne numbering the stars trying to survive middle school.
I'm probably not ever going to be a lady.
I'll never slay some fire-breathing monster.
I'll just be . . . Aerin.
I've always been an outcast,
the shy girl with the wide, sapphire blue eyes behind the brown glasses
the one that hides behind her books and her drawings,
the one that seems to have her head in the clouds,
the one that is kept awake at night with her fantasies,
the one with a million thoughts in her head that she's afraid to share.
Nobody notices me.
No one ever does.
To them, I'm just the quiet, sad girl in the corner, hiding from the world,
That's me.
That quiet girl in the corner.
