Two projects.

1.
I.

I saw the best minds of my generation contaminated by their everlasting yearning to be more like those who rule their living rooms.

Who are exposed constantly to the lusty residents uttering fairy tale proclamations and living in glass cages for all the world to see while silently smirking and accepting enough dough to make a single loaf of bread that could end world hunger.

Who see those people standing under their spotlight and their sex and their glamour and idolize it passionately.

Who see the fallacious simplicity of their love and children and life and covet it.

Who were exposed to all this because their creators shoved them lovingly in front of the silver screen in hopes that their prolonged absences would not be noticed.

Who had their innocence destroyed when their rectangular baby sitter showed them something even an adult would find obscene.

Who want a hug a touch a kiss a whisper in a way no mere child should learn of-but who was there to teach them otherwise?

Who search the littered street corners for the sort of love they see in the bedrooms of the hollow black boxes. Hollow as their own souls.

Who reach out to touch the arms of the college boys home for the weekend who are ignorant to what they are getting themselves into, grinning and seeing only another sweet girl with another appealing offer.

Who are seductive as they spread their cherry flavored lips in a confident smile to show teeth as white and sharp as if they’ve freshly broken through bloody gums.

Who angle their heads so their faces-still round with baby fat-appear sharper.

Who are as ready as a lady twice their age, whose clothing is as scandalous as another Pretty Woman, and whose true age must be kept quiet or else men shirk back in disgust at themselves.

Who are broken again and again in pursuit of that love.

Who see the Stars with their Starlets with Starlets of their own and see there is another kind of love they can use to try and fill their leaking entities.

Who can’t see the “Do Not Enter” sign on the street they’re walking down because a reality show and a movie joined together in beating it into the gutter months ago after discovering how profitable teen mothers can be.

Who see a way to fasten people to them for a life time as well as create something that they are sure will love them for all eternity.

Who know that this will happen, because their baby-sitter-box told them it would.

Who make the tiny white pills disappear under their tongue so that no one suspects how terrible their desire for a love like Holly Wood’s has become.


II.

I’m with you at the kitchen table,

Where your mother cries and asks herself out loud where she went wrong, pulling her hair and digging her manicured nails into the shiny wood table.

I’m with you in his bedroom,

Where you whisper the news in his ear with a smile on your face, expecting the opposite of how he reacts as he steps back -pale faced- and chokes on his words while his eyebrows come together creating creases across his young forehead.

I’m with you at school,

Where it is obvious from the gawking and behind-handed whispers, the muffled laughter always behind you, that somebody let it slip.

I’m with you in the clean white office,

Where you sit half-naked on paper that crackles under every movement, with pictures on the walls that make you giggle in your immaturity while your mother’s eyes turn on you in reproach and she tells you again that “It’s time to grow up.”

I’m with you in your room,

Where you sit alone on a Friday night the size of a whale, doing homework while the friends you used to have ignore your calls and go to movies and parties without you.

I’m with you in the hospital room,

Where you’re panting and sweating in pain, hoping only for relief.

I’m with you the day after,

Where you watch visitor after visitor pass that tiny part of you around the room and ask you questions and smile at you when all you want is to go to sleep and wake up with your old life back. Where you cry and think, “This isn’t how the show went.”


III.

I’m with you in the hospital room,

Where you take your first breath and scream your first cry and are handed to a girl, a child herself, who looks at you with eyes full of confusion and disappointment.

I’m with you at night,

Where your grandmother holds the bottle to your mouth with tears in her eyes while your mother sits on the porch and smokes a cigarette while arguing with your father.

I’m with you in the morning,

Where your father refuses to change your diaper and complains about having to work and your mother refuses to change your diaper and calls you “work.”

I’m with you in the afternoon,

Where you lay on a blanket in the living room floor in front of the TV with a spit-up stained outfit on while your dad is at the bar and your mom is on the porch smoking her cigarettes and talking on the phone with someone who will be tired of listening to her complain soon. Eyes glued to the colorful shapes on the screen, you gaze into the glass cage and see the people living there. The same baby-sitter-box that taught your mother how to find love.


2.
Some people may say that I have many strengths. Others may wish to contradict that, and argue that I have few. What I know for a fact is this that I have three solid strengths that I have carried for as long as my memory serves me. One of them is that I love to write. Writing is a way I learned to organize my thoughts and clear my head long ago. It is something that has helped me get through many challenges in the past and still does today. It is not something I do bitterly, or out of pure necessity. I enjoy writing, and I learned to love it at a young age. Like most little girls, I owned a diary complete with lock and key. At first, the pages were filled with the normal things little girls write about: boys, playground gossip, and all my childish dreams of fame and fortune. Not long after my first experiences with writing, my life changed so drastically that I was forced to grow up in the blink of an eye. Not only did my personality and perspective change, but so did my appreciation for words and their power.


Words can save, change, or destroy lives. One simple word can silence a man, and another can make him cry out. In the duration of my life I had underestimated their power, and had been unable to see their frightening beauty. Without words, we would be a lost planet. The world would have no peace or order, and all the technology we have today would never have come into existence. I cannot begin to tell you how traumatic instances can result in a new grasp on words because I do not know. Although, I am very thankful it did.

After I realized this I began putting words together in ways I never had before. Writing had always been a catharsis for me, but now I was able to give what I had written some appeal. I would write down every single thought, and search through a thesaurus before I ever used the same word twice. My journals began to fill with more variety and different styles. Writing had always been an escape for me, but it became more. I could write how I felt down, no matter how terrible, and mold it into something beautiful. A boring sentence is like a puzzle with missing pieces; once you find those lost pieces and rearrange it, you have something astonishing.

The pleasure I receive from writing compares only to that of reading. In my seventeen years worth of memories, I don’t ever remember complaining about having to read. I haven’t ever refused a book, although I have judged a few by their covers. There are only a handful of books I haven’t enjoyed, and even fewer that I haven’t finished. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time in a day to mention all of those that I loved.

In similar ways to writing, reading has helped me through many life challenges by acting as an escape. When you become absorbed into a book enough, the real world no longer exists. It is only you and the characters. If the book is written well, it can feel as if you are there battling pirates or dancing at a ball. You begin to feel a connection with the people in the story, especially if they are going through things similar to what you have experienced before. This can help one feel less alone, knowing that there is always someone in the world with the same worries or troubles. Reading is also beneficial because it not only gives you a feeling of comfort, but it opens your eyes to different cultures and how blessed and lucky many of us truly are.

My third and most socially advantageous strength is that I have a strong sense of connection with people the around me. I can look at a person I’ve never met before and find at least one thing we share. It can take time for me to see that bond, but I always find one. In the past this is how I’ve managed to have such a variety of friends. I am only human, so I do make rash judgments about people, but they never stick. I believe that every person was born pure, and if for some reason they end up being someone less appealing it is not their fault. Because someone has problems is all the more reason to step back and make sure you have seen the whole picture before you decide how to treat them.

The only times I have ever struggled or had any interferences in my work and success, have been no one’s fault but my own. Until recently, I was unable to see the benefits of something as simple as graduating high school. I had no desire to go to college, and no career plans or goals. The reality of what would happen if I continued on this road did not become apparent until I stopped to look at my friends who didn’t finish high school. Two of them have children, one is pregnant, and two are addicted to drugs. All of them are living off welfare, and only two of them have jobs. I know that is not the life I want.

When I was younger, six or seven, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. Those may seem like abnormally large dreams for a child of that age, but it is what I wanted. About halfway through my 5th grade year I started receiving letters from colleges all over the world, asking me if I was interested in attending. At the end of 7th grade I was given an award that said I had the highest GPA out of both the 7th and 8th graders. By the end of junior high, I had planned out exactly how I would be able to graduate high school in two years so that I could start college early. I was also narrowing down the choices of what college I would go to.

Unfortunately, my first week into high school, my family was shaken with an experience that caused me to throw all my dreams down the drain. It is true, I did not have to. I could have dealt with everything the right way, even though it may have been harder, and I would still be on that path I planned the year before. I took the easy way out, and now it is hard to even look back and see that I was that girl. Now that I have opened my eyes to reality again, I am going to bring that girl back.