**“I have never been anything but a paper girl. Something to tear into pieces. Something to burn. ”** We’ve all been paper before. We’ve all been fragile. Leaflike and gently blowing, enough to create stories or build fires. We go through life like that. We come across things that tear us into pieces, and we keep going. We keep fighting, because we must. We look for ways to be whole. To be the person we dream ourselves to be. Fragile by nature but tough by circumstance, paper girls are shaped by their love and loss. This collection of poetry and prose describes the journey of learning to live fully through the messiness of life and tenuousness of mental health.