I have found that when I look at my past self. We don’t have much in common.
People who saw her saw only a toy. Something to be played with. Unsolicited, sexist, and vulgar comments they’d spit. The cringiest things.
People who associated themselves with her called her ghetto, as if ghetto were an adjective.
The few people who thought they knew her, thought she was so strong, so tough. They thought nothing ever truly got to her. Never was she shook; or, so they thought.
But they never really knew the true me. She had a sense of self. She knew her emotions, and they were strong. She had confidence, pride, and passion. She was headstrong but open-minded. She knew where she belonged and where she could make herself a place to be. She could make anyplace her home.
That girl was intimidating. She would step right up to the tallest boy in school and knock out his two front teeth despite the fact she’d have to find some sort of way to reach his mouth.
That was the old me; brave, sure, always standing tall. Or perhaps I had myself fooled, because now, I’ve been put in a new situation; a harmless environment where I feel safe for the most part. And now I am unsure. I am not brave. I’m quite scared, because I don’t know where I’m headed or who I am. My head is not on my shoulders because my shoulders are already heavily burdened. So I tend to lose it from time to time. But that’s okay. I will grow into myself; filling that mysterious gap in my personality.
My head will instead floats above the clouds and I will find myself never where I need to be, but I will not care. I will be perplexed. I will be ignorant to all my problems until I trip, slicing my knees on the concrete. I will not feel it. No, I will not numb in a angsty art-kid way. No, I will be numb because I choose to wipe off the blood and push the pain off into the grass.
Now I will never be sure. I shall go with the flow. I’ll roll with it. I’ll try not to overthink things much. I will strive to become impulsive. I’ll have never been so ecstatic to make mistakes. Of course, there are consequences. However, I shall continue this way because I am exploring. I am finding myself.
