Meteora

Entering high school was terrifying, I could feel my heart beat in my ears. I looked at all the students. Boys so tall they looked like trees, girls more womanly than my mother even seemed to me. 

I stumbled through the halls, with my fists tight at my side, listening to my CD, the one I had scraped up enough change to buy over the course of several months of berry picking and couch cushion searching. 

I was 14, wide eyed behind my glasses, tight jawed and short. School was the place where I not only grated on people, I also didn’t know my place. 

At home there were expectations, there was the side stepping of the parents, the careful handling of the brothers. 

Here it was all landmines, and I was no good at careful detonation. 

In my head the lyrics ran through, from the point of leaving my house and taking the long bus ride into the school district furthest from my middle school to avoid the people who had taken pleasure in beating the crap out of me. 

I was 14 and scared. 

My parents were confused by my choice to go so far away, when a school ten minutes from our house would do just fine. They still didn’t know that walking those ten minutes posed more of a threat than taking a 45 minute bus ride home after dark. 

In our peeling blue painted house the fights had slowed and almost stopped. Instead sickness took over, first in the form of headaches from my mom, and then hospital visits. 

In the chaos of it all my parents asked me to trust them, not once but twice, three times. I lost count. 

Trying not to break but I’m so tired of this deceit
Every time i try to make myself get back upon my feet
all I ever think about is this, all the  tiring time between and how               trying to put my trust in you just takes so much out of me.

But there’s one thing a kid learns fast, that’s who to trust and when. And I knew better. 

I worked hard, when they asked me to get a part time job to pay for my own clothing and needs I did not question it. I knew eventually they would ask for more, and when they did I was ready. Unhappy but ready. 

But that was okay. Not yet, I wasn’t prepared for the tearing away of my world, for the growing and the pain that came with it. I knew where I was headed though. I knew what needed to happen. I just needed time.

I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else, until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything till I break away from me
I will break away, I’ll find myself today

There was not a lot I had plenty of growing up. Thankfully, I did get time. 
And my Linkin Park to listen to in the dark.