"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."

- Kurt Cobain

In fifth grade, I was officially labeled as "unpopular." Every other girl had long flowing locks, some blonde, others a deep chestnut. Some girls even were allowed to wear these pink clip-on hair pieces. Those were the "popular" girls. The ones who had people to play with at recess. They shared cubbies with other long haired pretty girls, the ones with the doe eyes that radiated blues and greens. Me? I had uneven shoulder length hair. My bangs were above my eyebrows, split ends swirled my head like question marks and the color was boring old black. So black it made my eyes seem hazel. But they weren't. They were just boring old brown. I had a cubby all alone and at recess, I was alone too.

In sixth grade, I was labeled a "loser". You know how it goes. Girls started to get boobs and with more boob, comes more friends. More people to eat with at lunch. More arms to link with when you're walking through the halls. More boys to pass notes with cute little hearts on them. More, more, more everything. Me? I was just less, less, less everything. My hair had finally reached past my shoulders, but it was still boring old black. My chest was so flat my mom didn't even take me bra shopping before that school year. And I was so friendless, I didn't even wanna be seen with myself.

In seventh grade, I became a "goth". Typically I feel like this is something you decide to label yourself, but the lovely kids at WestFurr Middle School did it for me. How thoughtful. I started wearing black in the beginning of the year. Black everything. Black shirts, black pants, black shoes, black spiral notebooks black everything. Though, nothing seemed to be as black as my boring old hair. I thought it would help me hide. But in a school full of popular pink and blue, black just makes you stand out. Black just makes you "goth".

In high school, I wasn't a label anymore. I was nobody. I had gained a few friends that I didn't speak to outside of school. Athena is part of the "hipsters". She's cool for not being cool. She gives me the time of day during lunch, so luckily I am not alone to not eat my lunch. She has the pretty long locks that stay photograph-worthy at all times. Noel is a " hippie/stoner". He's nice to pretty much everyone. Marijuana will do that to a person. Sometimes I wish my whole damn school would smoke a fucking blunt. Just so for the hour, we could all be nice. And then there was Cage. Cage was just plain popular, he's on the basketball team. He isn't so much my friend, but he was nice enough to pair up with me in our senior project for Ms. Ying's class. Everyone around me seemed to have a label, and for the first time in 17 years, I wanted one.

I believe envy and hate are two very different feelings, which sit behind a very thin line. I do not hate a lot of people at my school, I envy them. I envy the time of day they get from tall boys with pretty smiles. I envy their perfect bodies, the way you could see every curve in their perfect shadows. I envy their labels. To have a label, you have to get recognized but no one recognizes me. I have jealousy toward a lot of my peers, but one boy specifically I envied the most. Jason Bare.

Jason Bare's football jersey lies on that thin line between envy and hate. As soon as Jason hit middle school, he was popular. I wouldn't be surprised if that kid had never heard a bad word about himself. When high school came around he only became more of an idol. All of the popular girls wanted him and all of the popular guys probably do too. Everything comes so easy to Jason. The popularity, the kind words, the labels, the notes from girls with cute little hearts on them. And all he has to do is look at you the right way and you're sucked into him. Like a black hole.

My hate for Jason Bare is simple. I hate Jason because I love him. Yep, I said it. I love Jason Bare. No, no. Not the love that the cheerleading squad feels between their thighs when he waves to them during practice. The kind of love you feel when your feet have little heart beats in them whenever you pass them in the hallway. The love where their laugh makes your lips curl up to the crinkles by your eyes. The love that makes your palms sweat and your tummy dance and your mind goes fuzzy because their smile is just so smiley. The love that "No label, Nobody Phoenix Lynn" should not be feeling for "Popular, perfect life Jason Bare."