Am Broken

Hi, I'm Broken and I am 12 years old. Well...my real name is Amelia, but I think I am broken.
My mother and father say I am perfect just the way I am, but I think I am broken.
Actually, I know I am broken.
Some kids at school make fun of me and say I am broken, but in meaner ways:
They call me Chucky, retarded, freaky, Syndrome girl, and many other bad names. I don't cry so much anymore. I just ignore them. As much as I can.

I first realized that I was different from the other kids when I was about 8 years old.
I couldn't play like the other kids in the park, even if they would have let me play with them, which they didn't. They just looked at me funny, and some laughed.

I first started asking for help at about that age.
"Can you fix me?"
I asked the doctors. They would look all sad and say that they couldn't, but that I would be just fine as I am. That I WAS different, but that they liked me just as I was and that many people loved me as is.
I didn't give up.
I noticed that many people were good at fixing things, so I asked them.
I asked the plumber when he was fixing the toilet:
"Can you fix me?"
He looked at me for a long time and answered, "No, I can't, sweetie."
When the washing machine broke, I asked the repairman if he could fix me too, please...
He also answered, "No."
I asked him, "Why not? You can fix many things, can't you?"
He looked like he was going to cry when he said: "I wish I could help you, Amelia, but I can't."
"Call me Broken, then." I answered back and ran crying, to my room.
I didn't understand why, if they could fix things, why they couldn't fix me. I just wanted to be like the other kids.

That is when I started introducing myself as "Broken".
"Hi, I'm Broken", I would say.
They would look at me really sad and then look at my parents for help.
They just kind of tittered nervously and never answered back.
Mom and Dad just let me call myself that from then on.

They did explain to me that I was born with Down syndrome and that there was no fix for it, but that they loved me just as I was and not to worry.
I do.
Why did I have to be born broken? Why couldn't it have been another kid?
I cry myself to sleep sometimes.
I hear my parents fighting sometimes at night, and my mother always cries. She says it was all her fault. I don't know why. I kind of believed her once and got angry with her for it once. I didn't speak to her all day that day.

I sometimes pretend I am normal and really try to do things like the other kids, but it doesn't come out right.

My teachers at school told me that I was actually "stubborn". I liked that. I asked them why and they explained it to me.
I guess I was, 'cuz I just kept on asking.
I was sent to a special teacher at school and asked her:
"Can you fix me?"
She couldn't either, but said she would try really hard.
I liked her.
I once heard the nice Italian bread maker scream angrily at another man, "I'll fix you!" as he shot a fist at him.
I immediately ran up to him and asked:
"Can you fix me?"
He laughed sadly for a really long time.
I guess he couldn't fix me either.

I learned that fixing places were called "repair" stores.
I must have gone into all of them asking:
"Can you fix me?"
Mom would just let me.
I never got a "yes", but that didn't stop me from trying again and again.
I just knew somebody would answer "yes" one of these days.

I'm not bad at all things: I like drawing and am not bad at it.
I mainly copy other drawings, but they come out similar. I also like playing checkers and always beat my friend Alicia and my Uncle Tom. Alicia is my age and "fixed", or what they call normal. She is very nice to me.
I'm also quite good at playing the sentence-making game Phrazzle Me. I like making sentences and questions for points. The colors and dots help me a lot.

I enjoy going out to places, but don't like it when people stare at me, which is almost always. I wish someone would fix me already.

My Uncle Tom bought me a keyboard for my 11th birthday, and I can play some simple songs, or parts of them. Never a whole song. I just sit there and try all the keys on that small piano until I hit the right notes, one after the other. My mother says I play by ear. Whatever that means.

At school, there is one really mean boy. He taunts me all the time. He calls me nasty names and laughs at me. He was suspended once on account of bullying me. I was happy, but I didn't understand how he could be so mean to me.
That confused me.
Another thing that left me sad and confused was the time my doctor took me to a special area of the hospital. I met a lot of kids. Some of them were bald, and others were really sick. There weren't any like me, but I did agree with my doctor when he told me that many of those kids were in worse condition than I was; that I was lucky to be healthy. I didn't know if to be happy, or sad.
I got home that day and went to my special secret place to think about those poor kids. They didn't seem sad, even though they were probably going to die soon. I guess I shouldn't be sad to be broken. Please don't ask me where that secret place is. If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret anymore. Nobody knows-not even Alicia nor my parents.

We were driving by a garage sale one day, and I asked my parents to stop. It had a lot of things, like books, tables, toys, teddy bears, and one special doll. There were many dolls, but one was very special: It, too, was broken. Its leg had almost come off. It kind of dangled off the rest of her body. It was in the garbage on the lawn. I wanted it and asked the nice lady how much it was. She said it was broken and that I could have it for free, but wouldn't I like one of the other non-broken dolls? I said no. I wanted that one: the broken one...like me.
I called her Mandy. She became my best friend, and I took her everywhere with me.
I saw Dad fixing a pipe in the bathroom with some black tape. He called it duct tape, even though it didn't have anything to do with a duck. I saw where he put it after using it, and went to get it later that day. It took me a long time to wrap the tape around her waist and both legs, but I did it. It looked like she was wearing black shorts. Her leg didn't hang anymore. She looked normal.
I fixed Mandy!
I was so happy.
I showed it to my parents, and Mom cried. When I showed it to Uncle Tom, he asked if I could fix his tennis racket. I did. I could fix things. I was very happy. I couldn't fix myself, but that was okay. As long as Mandy was happy to be normal, I was okay being broken.
Uncle Tom told me that we were all broken in some way or another, but we all lived with it, and everything came out just fine in the end.
I hope you can fix your brokenness, but if you can't, that's okay too.
I like this song: "Fix You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4V3Mo61fJM

The End