Time, Be Gentle with Me

I hate it! Don't look at me like that! I hate it when people look at me with pity! I don't need anyone's pity! I hate those people who watch me like a joke, gloating over my misfortune, even more! I was only a few years old when my mom abandoned me and ran off. My dad hated me, hit me, and ignored me. My grandma hated me, telling everyone I was abandoned by my mom, that she didn't want me. And I did my best to live up to it: I raced cars, or splashed muddy water onto blankets other people had hung out to dry. Everyone in the village hated me, and I hated everyone in the village. I was like a cocklebur covered in prickles, stabbing anyone who came near. I decided to die, but I was scared, so scared of dying that I walked back home alone. At night, I curled up by myself in the darkness, calling out again and again, "Mom, Mom, Mom, where are you? Why did you give birth to me if you didn't want me?" Grandpa was the only warmth in my life, but he left me forever. I gave everything I had to love my first love, the person I was willing to stake it all on, but he despised me. In our last argument, he blurted out that I was just as cheap as my mom...