Walking in the basement appartment that they were to be evicted from in 4 days,

with a heavy book bag and a world of stress on her shoulders. She walked down

the cement steps into the dark that her, her mother, brother and her step father called

a home. She was placed in the storage closet to sleep.

Her mother and step father were so high, there was no thought or hope of 

them coming down.

She came home every day, 3:26pm, on the dot. Life was routine. With the house of

high parents, she became the adult. 13 years old, holding her new born brother in her

exhausted arms. With her heavy eyes and broken soul, she took him for everything

he was. She loved him more than anything in the world around her.

With the money they didn't have, she made her own, and she bought him shoes. 

She fed him with her love.

She taught him to talk with her accient.

He learned to walk with her guiding his steps.

She loved him with her whole self.

When he turned 3, and I 16, we had grown so attached, you wouldn't have known 

that him and I led different lives. My mother asked why I was the only one

there for all of his firsts. First words, steps, etc.

I told her, "Because you claim us as your everything,

 -"and still trade us for nothing, but I've worked this hard, because I love

 -"that boy as my son. I do everything, because I love him."

And my mother walked away with a pill in her hand ready for her lips to touch

the Lortab, Methadone, which ever she prefer, and she walked away, almost

as quickly as when his dad left for work to never come home.

I live because I love him.