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Read it or don't, but this is where I started.

I was standing in a room. It wasn’t very big, maybe half the size of an average high school class room. The size of every councilor’s office I will find myself in over the next 10 years. The light was dark and red, casting shadows at every angle. There were several chairs and stools placed around the room, there was even a couch. But I couldn’t sit down. Every surface except for the shrinking patch of hard floor I found my feet planted on was covered in…stuff. Stacks of paper, piles of laundry, rotting food crawling with squirming bugs. I gagged, and my eyes started to sting. The mounds of garbage creeped up on me like old style zombies-no glamour, no speed, and yet no chance of running either. I started to yell, or that’s what I meant to do. What came out was nothing more than a whisper. My own voice scared me, I ached in every cell in my body to help the owner of that desperation-filled voice. When I realized I was the only person who could have been speaking I began to cry harder and my whisper rapidly turned into unrecognizable shrieks. I was trying to say help. I tried saying mom. I tried saying please. I tried every swear word and plead that I knew. It didn’t matter. Every sound came out mangled and inhumane, completely drown out by my sobs.

Tossing and turning, I woke up. By relief was short lived when I was reminded that my nightmare was only a reflection of the hell surrounding me. I was on the ground. I can’t remember when or why I moved my mattress there, but it was twisted at an awkward angle, forcing me to contort my body like a churro in order to sleep. Luckily, I had been able to find an old blanket the previous night. I think my aunt gave it to me for Christmas a few years back? When I can’t find a blanket, I sleep under piles of dirty laundry. It’s warm even if it smells sometimes. I like fresh air, that’s why I keep a fan next to my bed. It’s a tall standing fan that I’ve laid on its side, parallel with my body. It’s always on high. All day, all night.

I stood and rubbed my eyes, surprised to find no tears there. I carefully traversed the layered clothes, garbage, and mysterious substances coating the floor. I looked out my window to see if my dad’s car was there. It wasn’t. I didn’t know if he wasn’t home from wok the day before, or if he had already left for the day. I would have liked to say that I didn’t care either way, but I couldn’t remember the last time he had talked to me. Knowing I needed to get ready for school, I began the trek in that direction. Shoving sludge out of the way enough to open the bathroom door, I saw myself in the mirror. I tried to scrub the sticky dirt off my face with metallic, almost blood-tasting water from the faucet.  But all the water in the world couldn’t wash away the exhaustion stained into my eyes.  I looked at the tooth brush precariously balanced on a stack of old q-tips, magazines, and young children’s toys resting on the counter. The toothbrush was unused, I looked at it every day. Yes, of course I would like to use it. But I don’t know how. There are a lot of normal things I don’t know how to do. But there are also a lot of abnormal things I’m unfortunately an expert at. For example, I could never tell you how to fold laundry, but I know the 57 best excuses to use when someone asks to come over. Some of my favorites, or maybe in this case, least favorites are:

“We are actually renovating right now, so I can’t have anyone over sorry.”

“My family just isn’t very social, we could go to your house though.”

“My mom is getting sick, we wouldn’t want you to catch anything.”

I went to school like that. Unshowered, tangled hair, dirty face. The older I got the better I was at hiding my lack of knowledge. I put my hair up every day. I discovered deodorant. I kept scrubbing with rancid blood-water.  But, for the time being, I had no friends. Who would want to talk to someone like that? My backpack didn’t help. When I arrived to class that day, my teacher asked me for homework from the previous night. Knowing had gone to bed with it uncompleted because my mother was busy watching TV and my Father was still at work, I had already started turning red when she reached a perfectly manicured hand out to collect the assignment. I told her that it was in my backpack and asked her to give me a minute to find it. Carefully unzipping the bag, I fingered through each document before turning to the bottom of the bag and pulling out one crumpled and wore paper out after another. Eventually finding the right one, I brushed off the crumbs sticking to the assignment and quietly handed it to my teacher. Fearing what was coming, I held my head down so far, it hurt my neck and spine. When her voice rang out it was quiet, but the entire class had silenced in anticipation, so her volume only added to the excitement. “This is unacceptable. What would your mother think? Do you keep your room this way?” My head bowed even lower, until I felt my eyelashes brush up against the desk. “Clean it out right now,” She demanded, as her voice started to rise, slowly at first. But like a gentle incline, her tone seemed easy at first but quickly burned every muscle in my body. I was startled by a roar of papers fluttering around me followed by a flurry of crumbs and finally the thud of half a dozen erasers. Looking up from my place of denial, I saw all of my school belongings scattered across the drab gray carpet of our classroom.  Craning my neck, I saw the supplies I had picked out with care and excitement in anticipation for this year reaching even the farthest corner of the suddenly very still room. It was in this moment that I heard the first clip of a whisper followed by snickering laughter. Desperately hoping this was all a joke, I turned my eyes up towards to instigator of this nightmare and saw that she was, in fact, not laughing. Not even a hint of a smile graced her face. I dropped to my knees and tried to gather papers, pencils, erasers, and anything in site as fast as possible. I threw away things without glancing at them, fueled by the terror of what might happen if I didn’t perform well enough. Fueled by the words my parents had drilled into me for years, “You must never let anyone know.” When I was done my bag looked better, every paper had been smoothed out and the crumbs and been dumped into the trash. My eyelashes touched the desk for the rest of that day.

Author's Note

it's my actual life you are commenting on, keep that in mind.

Reviews

[Srchaud]

This is really good, in fact this is great. This right here is writing at some of it finest. I love the prose there are tight and descriptive. I felt everything the words pounded off the page into my head. I am glad you put this up, it was worth reading. Is there more?