Take what you will Sofia B
My mom had a boyfriend, Steve, from Brookline. Because they needed a house together in which all seven of us (Steve, my mom, I, my brother, and Steve’s three kids) could fit. Obviously the rental home wasn’t the place. First my mom was just looking in Arlington, then someone, I don’t know who, put Brookline on the table. I am very loyal to my town. I still love Arlington and I’m not even there most of the time! The reason I love it so much is similar to the reason a person loves the house they grew up in. At the time it just seemed like everything slipped away from me. I didn’t know it was even a possibility we would move to Brookline until my mom told me she and Steve bought a house there. I felt Betrayed. My whole world had been shattered, and that world will always stay shattered; it is now something that can never be re-created. The rug of life had not only pulled out from under me but when I hung on to it, not willing to let go, it was torn in half leaving me on the ground holding the remains of a rug. I saw myself a tree, ripped from its roots, and then when thrust into the ground again, told to grow. A knife in the dark from my own kind. Hell had come to my doorstep and my mother invited it into my house. There are no apologies for this, and there are no excuses. There is no way to explain to me why this happened. It wasn’t about where I moved to, it was that I had a bond with the people and the place I was in. It exposed the side of people you never want to see. After I left, my friends forgot about me, or at least when I saw them again they pretended too. I had nowhere to turn, nobody could help me. My dad’s hands were tied, and my mother, even though I begged her, didn’t let me go back to Arlington. I was forced to start my life over in Brookline.
When I went to school I displayed nothing on my face. Some people put on a smile. A plastic expression they put there for the enjoyment of others. I didn’t want to put on my plastic mask. As I walked, I never made anyone move out of my way. Like a ship, I let them toss me through the hall. I would even move out of the way of the door. I couldn’t control my life. I never smiled and barely spoke. Whenever I talked, I was answering the teacher. I was but a whisper. A crushed human waiting to be saved. In my silence I screamed for help. The quiet voice I possessed had nothing to say. Nobody could understand. And in silence my voice grew smaller. If I scream and know one listens does it make a sound? When I walked my eyes were heavy and empty like a thick black fog was pouring out. I hung my shoulders from my spine as a large sadness loomed over me. Inside I felt a black hole sucking me away. I was an animal in a human world. I felt like a raccoon that just stepping out of a cold dark forest. As I stand on four legs at the edge of a paved road, a muscle car zooms around a corner. I see a group of happy humans socializing. They have their plastic masks on. I see them but they do not see me.
They pass that moment and I am left behind, they didn’t even know how important it was. They barely know it even happened. Sadness brought me so far from everyone. I was so far from everything. Sometimes, even today, I am that animal. The animal will always stay. When I walk down the hall and look out the window I just stand there for a minute. Thinking about what would happen right then if I just took off and ran. Ran out the window, into the wild, gone forever. I don’t think I would even look back.
All the time I wonder why I am like this. Moving from your town isn’t that bad in the end. It can’t be the true and only reason I am so sad. I have been pondering this for three years. When I really think hard about it it’s the being unheard that I hate the most. That’s why I hope you hear me right now. I hope when you read this you try your hardest to understand what you just read. It means a lot to me. What I have just done is pulled a part of my life out of me, dipped it in ink, stamped it on paper, and given it to you. What you do with it is up to you. I will only ask and not demand that you try to understand it if you can.