Coming home from school I sit in agony. My mom isn’t home yet she is working late, again. I turn on the television. The music helps me know that I am still alive no matter my silly existence. I had failed at school not at a grade I failed myself. It was in my teacher’s classroom. It wasn’t how I thought it would be. I always wondered what was different about me but as I look in the mirror I know. My mother is from Iraq my father is African-American he brought my mother here in Cincinnati where I was conceived. I am ugly, I am nothing. I was born here but this is not my home. I share no religion of my mother I have always been a Christ believer like my father, but he has yet to deliver me.

I hold my head. “What is the point of doing homework?” I say in almost a whisper. It wouldn’t matter if I shouted either way. It’s not like anyone would hear me. I had no friends and my mother never speaks to me sometimes I can look in her eyes and it’s as if I hurt her just to see how I look. I raised my head putting my long hair in a ponytail I felt so tired but I had to keep going.

The next day I was at school. It had been a rainy day and I was hoping for school to cancel but like a real prison it never closed. I walked with my bag. My hair was messy, it never looked organized anyway. “Why should
I feel frustrated it’s the same every day. The feeling of not being normal, and they tell me I’m just growing up. Why are my peers so rough why do they bite at me? Why? I feel as if I’m bleeding. Why won’t anyone listen. Why can’t someone reach out?”