They lay the books in front of us,
Tell us to open the books to a certain page and then ask us to read.
I love books, i find them a gift even at this young age.
My mom has been reading to me since before i could remember, buying hundreds of books for my own little library.
I raise my hand and volunteer, though what is on the page is not yet clear.
The teacher calls on me when she sees my hand shoot up into the air;
I begin reading each line, noticing a rhythm but no rhyme in each of the lines.
This day perked my curiosity, looking more into these poems that i could make.
They didn't have to rhyme; just tell a small story and show the world a piece of me and what I see.
Time passed, things changed. My life cracked around the hole my dad left.
He didn't mean to leave, his life taken by a young intern's mistake in medication, but one night i was saying "i love you daddy" and the next morning it was like a gunshot to my world.
People say they are sorry, and they pray for you, but they don't understand the pain your going through.
I couldn't tell my family how much I was falling apart, they were too, they didn't need my pain too.
I tried to be normal again, but i just didn't fit in the place where i was previously set.
I was different, and yet the same, and all i wanted was to get away from the pain.
So i fled to my books and my worlds far away till my 7th grade teacher showed me the world of poetry again.
I could share my sorrow and my pain with my paper and pen and not burden anyone else with my dark hole within.
As time went on my poems brightened, usually focusing on nature or love as my inspiration.
But sometimes the days are too dark to go alone, and that hole inside me takes the focus of my attention,
so i pick up my pencil and paper and share how I feel, few people close to me see what I write and i prefer it that way, because once they see the hole in my heart they look at me differently.
I write to release all that's pent up inside, but I also write for the joys in life that make life worth living and the loved ones I have that keep me on track in this life I'm living.