ELTHAM HIGH SCHOOL ANTHOLOGY   

Somewhat imperfect. Smiles like the pain that he has enclosed in himself is all just a distant memory. He goes unnoticed behind a barricade of silent whispers. Not good enough for himself. He hates everything about himself. Fears death like it’s an old friend, but greats it with a welcoming feelings. He's lost everything he's ever cared about, currently left with nothing. He is outnumbered day after day, keeps his feelings tied down, regrets became restrains. He can no longer be too careful. Clearly broken beyond repair, his broken smile hides his real feelings. Affection deprived.

She stands and silently watches him get pushed around. Knocking him around like he is nothing. It seems like every person pretends to care. Lies beyond lies, they dig further into his happiness. Yet he still feels like nothing.
When is he ever allowed to be upset and hurt? Somewhat perfect. In every way possible.

She tears her walls down from within. Self-inflicted pain on the inside. Likewise it’s like the bonds she thinks she has are just a lie to shadow the mutual hatred for her. On the contrary she spends her days alone, not engaging in other social interactions, because she's not good enough for any one including herself.
Screwed up beyond the point where love will make her feel no differently. Except for his love.
Adjacent to her mind, her body is no temple, just a confined area where every corner hides scar after scar, makes her feel worse off every time. She forgot what happiness feels like, there's no longer a way for her to smile and forgive herself to feel happy again. She feels held down by chains, the noise of the metal grinding together is a constant reminder that the only way to go is to give in. Lives like the up hills are mountains and the downhills are cliffs, the incline downwards swallows her, depriving her off all the things that truly make her happy. How can something so broken learn to love? She builds up her walls, only to be torn down again and again.  He is her only exception.

Two broken pieces of nothing fit together so perfectly to create something that means everything to them.
Before him she didn't know what to do with herself. She didn’t realize some body so flawless was anything short of a dream. Beyond anything she ever knew possible.
She wanted nothing more than to recede away from her own life before she had him. 
Her mind creating faded echo's crying out to the sky, but no one answered because no one cares.
His presence is her only outlet of happiness. A blessing and everything more.
She still asks herself, what is love?

To her, love is nothing more than the feeling she get when he leaves her. Drowned in an ocean of confusing, turns to self-abuse, falls back on the past, letting it entangle her until there's no escape. After all, self-destruction is such a pretty little thing. To her, love is the feeling she gets when she looks into his eyes.

To him, love is nothing more than the feeling he gets when she is close, love is the reason the flaws she recognises, the downfalls she knows she has, are the best parts about her to him. 

She needs nothing more than his love. Because to her, he is perfect in every way. His brown eyes progressively get more beautiful by the day, when the sun beams down on him; he glows in a gorgeous luminescence of an innocent child left behind. It hurt her to see him sad. It tears down her walls from within, except it was not self-inflicted.
In some ways she wanted to carry his problems on top of her own just to make everything easier for him. After all, self-destruction is such a pretty little thing.

She never wanted him to feel pain again, to lift a weight of his shoulders to allow him to carry on stronger each day.
Anything for him, as long as there was no present sadness in his heart. She would climb the highest mountains, with the least amount of oxygen at summit, just for him to feel happy.
But is this really love?
This overwhelming emotion that drowns her every day?
But this feeling not only brought her belonging, but the terror that one day she would no longer be good enough for him, his standards suddenly rose and she would never make the cut.
She knew she wasn't beautiful enough for him, he would find someone better to make him feel happier.  She thought it was beautiful that he chose her, but his decision was a dead end point, because at some point or another she would hurt him and that feeling would ricochet back onto herself, hurt her more than it hurts him. She is terrified for that day. She won’t be able to deal with it. Self-destruction is such a pretty little thing.

She first met him when she had no other choice but to sit with him and their awkward interactions began. She hadn't recognised the feelings yet. Every time she looked at him, an embracing feeling raced through her, like a filter, draining all the sadness from her body and excreting them, as he was the only way she could learn to feel happy again.
She was alone in that class. Each week she hoped they would talk but they never did.
She spent weeks debating with herself whether he likes her back. She couldn’t deal with it, it drove her insane.
It was like she found the perfect one, and each time he ignored her she lost more and more hope. She was in denial. She didn’t want to think about the potential hatred for her. It was breaking her.
She spent those weeks feeling lonely, like no one would never actually love her, that she would feel this way forever.
She felt as though she was being sucked into a black hole, and each day he ignored her she became closer and closer to the point of horizon, the point of no return.
She had crossed the line of endurable pain. She may as well have flat lined.

She had no idea how to express her feelings, due to the fact that she had spent so long keeping all of her feelings locked up inside of her, so no one had access to her world of pain.
That moment of stress relief when he said he feels the same way, it was that moment when she forgot about everything else, nothing else matters to her any more. He is literally her everything.

Now, she can’t keep her eyes off him. She will never quite understand why her chose her because she consciously knew that she will never be good enough for anyone including herself.
Still lonely, but not quite, because he fills a hole in her life. He will forever and always be the reason she progressively got better. He can only make her happy from here on in. He is nothing but a grace, means more than the world to her, he will never be anything short of perfect. She can only fear the day he leaves her. That will be the day she starts to question her meaning any more, but she will never be able to deal with the fact that when she doesn’t have him anymore, he will go back to the same life, constantly questioning his meaning in this world, dealing with the social problems that brings self-destruction. But he is such a pretty little thing.
Every time he says "I love you" she pulls herself out of the black hole, defying the laws of physics, maths and astronomy, but he makes her strong enough to do so.
This is love.