A Walk Through Life

Only In My Dreams

There was once a time when I thought I was worthless, when kids would say things that made me feel like I should go to sleep and never wake up. People would think I was mental because I didn't have social skills like most people. When you have enough disorders to spell out the alphabet and a medicine cabinet that looks like a pharmacy, you get used to being called "basket case" and "retard." I would go to bed an hour before my bedtime because it usually took an hour to cry myself to sleep.

Only in my dreams did the hatred stop, only in my dreams would I ever feel accepted, only in my dreams would I have friends, and only in my dreams would the world not seem like a punishment.

I would sit under a tree and ask God why He made me because I was under the impression that I was His mistake. I would try to defend myself against the kids that made me feel this way, but then everyone would treat me like I was the bully. So after that, I just took the abuse.

They beat my spirit to the ground and left it in a coma. They stabbed my heart so many times I bled out all my dreams. They broke my soul, then lost half the pieces.

I would have killed myself, but I believed in a God that wouldn't allow it. Unfortunately, when you scream questions at the sky and the sky doesn't answer, you start to doubt if anyone's listening. The more my faith slipped away, the more I found myself trying to find a building tall enough to kill me.

When I graduated from junior high, the nightmare ended and my faith was restored. It was time to repair the damage and find a better place.

My spirit maybe on life support, my heart maybe scar tissue, and my soul may still have missing pieces, but I'm happier now than I'll ever be. I may be damaged, but the cracks in my heart make it easier for light to shine through.

Today, I know people care about me. Today, I have friends who have shown me more love than brothers. Today, I feel accepted. Today, I no longer dream, because for once reality is a better place.

I'm not the only kid that lived like this. There are thousands like me around the world, kids who feared the playground because for them it was a battleground. Kids who'd pretend to be sick just so they could go one day without being called "faggot" or "retard." The kids that couldn't fall asleep because their pillow was drenched in tears.

We grew up thinking we were unlovable. We would look at the sky and think that we were a practical joke made by someone with a dark sense of humor. While other kids thought the world was a sandbox made just for them, we thought it was a raging fire and we were twigs destined to burn.

And then, we grew up, we found love, we moved on. We no longer think that the world is out to get us, instead we believe we're out to get the world. We're stronger now, because we survived the cruelty.

So to all you freaks, geeks, and oddballs:
Never stop believing
Never stop creating
Never stop feeling
Never stop loving
Never stop hoping