I look at my reflection in the mirror. Clad in all black, cigarette hanging from my mouth, leaning against the wall. I look like your typical disaffected, cynical Goth chick. And I wonder when that happened? When did I turn into who I am today? I remember a time when I was wearing all pink and constantly smiling. I was a happy girl then, didn't know what this world was really like. I didn't realize how hard it is just to live from day to day, knowing what lurks in the shadows. I didn't know about the evil people that turn this place into a cold hard place. I almost miss the happy days of youth where innocence was all I knew. But my child-like innocence was stripped from me like a baby blanket from an infant. I learned all the cold, harsh truths of this place we call "home". Everyday I had to deal with things that most 18 year olds couldn't deal with. And I was only 11 then. Maybe that's when this all started happen. When I started to be so cynical. When I stopped caring. Then again, it could have been when my life was turned upside down by my supposed best friend. When all my friends stopped talking to me and I was shunned. That's the thing with being popular, it's almost like in the 1600's, when you get exiled. I was exiled from our group. You might as well have given me a scarlet letter to pin on my back, I was a pariah. I thought suicide was my only option then. And believe me, I tried. But that fighter in me, that tiny spark of hate, it kept me alive. I wanted revenge. There in, I believe, lies the pinnacle moment of my change. When I stopped caring about others and let that hate take over. When I became the biggest bitch you'll ever meet. It was sort of an epiphany, it just happened all of a sudden. It wasn't one of those gradual changes, it just happened. I woke up one more and donned all black. I made myself look tough, I picked up that, "I'll beat the shit out of you if you look at me funny," demeanor. And it worked. I fooled everyone. I was the tough girl now, the one nobody wanted to mess with. Being the outcast stopped because everyone knew that if they were friends with me, nobody would mess with them. And it felt good, I loved being smart and confident. It got lonely after a while though. Never letting anyone in took it's toll on me. I had nobody to share my feelings with because that would be admitting I had a weakness. And a part of me is still that way to this very day. Grant it, I let more people in now, my close circle of friends know the real me. But a part of me will never be able to give up this image. I love being the "bad girl". The smart, beautiful, confident, cocky girl that most love and some just love to hate. She's who I am now. And it's taken me forever to realize that, to realize that I'm not that little happy innocent girl just covering herself in black anymore. I'm different. I'm dark and morbid, I'm cynical to the bone, I do all the wrong things, and I don't care. This all was the loss of my innocence.