Autobiography
I am leading a chaotic life in Jackson’s Shoes every day,
watching the spoiled children of
Collierville, Tennessee and their oblivious parents.
I am leading a chaotic life on Frank Road.
I am an American girl.
I was an American girl.
I read anything and everything in sight
and became a bookworm in my small apartment in Germantown.
I thought I was a Disney Channel starlet,
singing Hilary Duff at the top of my lungs, imagining my fictional world.
I had pink ballet shoes and a Razor scooter.
I wore my ballet slippers constantly, even just around the house.
Spinning, twirling, and jumping, pretending I was Thumbelina Ballerina.
I can still hear fights from across the hall.
I had a messy childhood.
I saw two people fall out of love.
I looked for a hand to hold and found a best friend in my older brother.
I got caught trying to steal money from the offering plate at church he same month I was baptized.
I stole flowers from the neighbor’s yard and brought them home as a present to my mom.
I landed on my wrist as I fell from the monkey bars at the park.
I have seen too much in my short seventeen years of breathing.
I have seen someone fade into a distant memory of who he used to be right in front of my eyes.
I am reading At First Sight,
realizing how attached I become to fictional characters,
having my heart break as theirs do,
crying as the book nears its end.
I have seen homeless men wander the streets of Memphis.
I have never been out of the country,
but I dream of sitting in a coffee shop in Europe.
I have seen my own reflection become a person I no longer recognized.
I have eaten too many McAlister’s chicken salad sandwiches.
I have heard advice that I never took.
I like where I’ve ended up,
but I can’t reverse the self-destruction I’ve already done.
I have ridden in the passenger’s seat of one too many cars.
I have travelled down the wrong path.
I have been in the shoes of a backstabbing friend.
I was in the wrong.
I have been caught in a lie with someone I truly cared about.
I have seen the look on a broken-hearted girl’s face, knowing that I caused her pain.
I have wandered lonely through the crowded halls of my high school.
I am leading a chaotic life at Houston High School
watching lost souls look for themselves in all the wrong places.
I once started out down the path to righteousness,
only to end up on the road to hypocrisy.
The temptation was too much for me.
I have engaged in behavior I am far from proud of.
I flew too far away,
and I barely found my way back.
I am looking for who I used to be.
I am looking for love in all the wrong places.
Girls should be more confident.
Home is not in the arms of a man.
But Mother never told me he who he really was.
Broken, I rest.
I have travelled to nowhere in particular.
I have seen my best friend’s heart break.
I have seen her world shatter because of his choices.
I have heard what they say about us.
I have heard only a select few defend the two of us.
I have heard my so-called friends say things they thought I would never hear.
I have slept through the night hoping to wake up to a new reality.
I have heard my own thoughts scream at me so loudly I cannot fall asleep.
I have worn the disguise of a smile and made everyone believe I was okay.
I have dwelt only in Memphis, where our basketball players receive more recognition than our teachers. What nothingness what poverty what violence!
What homeless men lost among the crowd.
I have seen the quaintness of Harbour Town on a sunny summer’s day.
I know that true love is nothing like a fairytale.
I have heard a thousand housebroken love stories.
They should not be trusted.
It is long since I was an angry, bitter freshman, seeking the approval of someone whose love I didn’t
need to earn.
I am leading a chaotic life in Jackson’s Shoes every day reading book after book,
trying to escape to another life.
I have reread all my teen love stories from cover to cover,
almost believing that boys like those actually exist.
I read our old conversations daily, wishing he would come back.
I hear the uncertainty in his voice.
One can tell he has no idea what he is really saying.
I read song lyrics daily, making someone else’s pain my very own.
I see my past slipping away from me.
I see my childhood companion becoming a mere acquaintance, at best, but I cannot change it.
I have read her conversations with my replacement.
I helped her meet every single person she chose over me.
I marched up to him with so much to say, but couldn’t get the words out as my eyes met his.
I see a similarity between tornados and me.
Tornados are the true beautiful disasters, violently spinning, stopping whenever they desire, causing destruction all the while.
I have walked too many miles trying to make sense of it all.
I have seen a man become a monster, seeing no fault in his actions, but destroying his world nonetheless.
I have heard Taylor Swift sing as if her songs were written for me personally.
I have ridden with my windows down, and believed the wind would take my troubles somewhere far, far away, crossed the bridge in Memphis and seen the two different worlds residing in one city.
I have seen the sky fall out on one side of town as a rainbow emerged on the other.
I am that girl.
I was the girl from the broken home.
I suffered silently.
I am an American.
I do not have a passport.
I don’t suffer in public because no one needs to know just how broken I truly am.
And I’m too young to die.
I am a self-made teenager, working a minimum wage job, but doing the best I can.
I am in line for a blessing.
I may be moving on to college,
but my heart will stay in Memphis with my mother.
I am a good girl, but I am not perfect.
I am an open book to Savannah.
I am a complete mystery to everyone else.
I am leading a chaotic life at Jackson’s Shoes every day,contemplating why exactly, I still work here.
I am a part of a work that has yet to be finished. I have wandered in various directions.
I have leaned on the shoulders of those who didn’t have room for me because of the chip they cannot seem to get rid of.
I have written blog entry upon blog entry with no capitalization.
I am a survivor.
I was there.
I lived it.
But I barely made it.
I have sat with my feet on the dash.
I am a fleeting image.
I am a roller coaster that takes everyone along for the ride.
I invented the art of cynicism after watching too many people who owed me more than what they showed me disappeared.
I am the lake in the middle of a desert. I am a word that adds flair to a sentence.
I am either at the very top of the hill or at the very bottom of the valley.
I am a raid on the hypocritical.
I have dreamt that I will have children, but I never see who the father is.
I am a flash of lightning on a summer night.
I am a never-ending cycle of thoughts.
I am a missing person, but I am still here.
I fear a similarity in my father’s selfishness and my own.
I have heard the phone ring with no answer too many times.
I have seen the option to pick up the phone disappear.
I understand I should have called him back.
I am stubborn and will never to be able to speak all things I left unsaid.
I have seen that there is no such thing as a meaningless kiss.
I have risked let down.
I have seen the way they look at each other after fifty years of marriage.
I have seen the gentle way he places his hand upon hers as they watch the news.
I have seen love that withstands the test of time.
I have heard the bickering of a couple whose love didn’t withstand the test of time.
I have heard the door slam and never open back up.
I have heard that this was all my fault.
I have danced with boys who I no longer talk to.
He was arrogant.
He had blonde hair and an easy smile.
I am leading a chaotic life in Jackson’s Shoes every day,
watching everyone lose their minds over five dollars in tax,
making kids smile by being friendly,
wolfing down a turkey sandwich in the five minutes I had to eat it,
and I read somewhere that I am lucky to have a job,
yet sometimes wish I didn’t have to work.
But I am that girl, and I always will be.
And I may complain about working when I need the money.
And I may want the attention but not the attachment.
And I may write my own epitaph,
loaded with words asking someone to save me.
Asking someone to love me.
Begging someone to change me.
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