A GRAIN OF HOPE

Chapter 1

Hey my name is Denise , Denise Sparks. I'm 17 years old and my birthday is in a few days, Even though no one remembers but me. I'm 5"4 with grey eyes and curly hair. I wear big glasses with a crack in the middle because I can't afford to buy any more. I only have a few clothes and two pairs of shoes. It's nothing to fancy though it's just enough for me to cover up.

I stay with my mom in a small apartment barley furnished. We stay in the ghetto part of Atlanta, you know, the projects where all the poor people live. I barely ever see my mother though. Every since I was seven I practically raised myself. Every since my mom met this man when I was little she has been strung out on drugs and she doesn't have time for me anymore. She use to at least make sure I had food at the house and the rent was paid. Now she just pays the rent and everything else I half to get on my own. Sometimes the only time I would see her is when I would come home at night and it would be a group of men doing nasty things to her in her room. I couldn't stand to see it and she didn't want my help. The last time I tried to help her she slapped me and told me to mind my got damn business. She said I needed to grow up and be more like her and stop acting like a little bitch. But I was little and I didn't know know any better and my mother was all I had since I didn't know my father.

So like a child I listened to her and she would take me in her room and make me look pretty . Put make up on my face and comb my hair. She would tell me "don't be scared it will on hurt a little then it will feel good. Just relax and it will be all over. She would make me take my clothes off and lay on the bed and then a man would come in and touch me in places that didn't feel comfortable to me at all. And as he layed on me and did his business tears would start to role down my eyes and I would look for my mother to help me but I just seen her stand at the door and smile. After the man was done he would hand her some money and he would leave and so would she.

When I was hungry I had to go out and beg for food and sometimes I wouldn't get that lucky so I would find things in a dumpster. When I would walk on the sidewalk at night I would find my mother strung on drugs in an alley with different men running a train on her. I would sit there and look and tears would fall down my eyes. I would call her name but she would never answer me. I would run home and hide under my blankets since I didn't have a bed until morning came for school.

I hated school the only reason I went is because they had free food and that's the only time I would eat a healthy meal. All the kids would pick at me and call me names because I didn't have nice clothes or shoes and because I wore big broken glasses. But it didn't bother me that much because I felt safer at school than my own house. I was very smart and I never got into any trouble. I didn't have any friends so I was always alone. Sometimes I would take some of the paper from school and a couple of pencils and go home and just draw. I loved to draw and I was really good at it. It was how I expressed my feelings because I didn't have anyone to talk to. The teachers would always ask me why I would come to school so hungry and with a whole lot of bruises. But I made up different stories because I didn't want them to take my mommy away.

She would always beat me for no reason she told me I was the reason my dad left her and she would never forgive me for it. But she never told me why I was the reason my dad left her. But I don't try to think about it alot. On Sunday's I would see this big church on the corner and a lot of people going to it. My mom never took me to church she didn't believe in God she would always say if there was a God then we wouldn't be living like this. She always blamed Every one for her mistakes and never took responsibility.

But one day I wanted to see why people would always go inside the church on Sunday's, all dressed up. I didn't think I would just be able to go in there and sit down I thought I had to have money just to get in. Until I tryed it one day. I sat down in the back and it was man dressed in a white robe talking to everyone one in the building. He talked about forgiveness . He said no matter how bad someone treats you or dose you wrong you half to forgive them. But I didn't understand what the word forgiveness ment until he explained it. He told us to get on our nees and ask God to forgive people who have did us wrong and the people that we did wrong and when we said it we had to mean it from our heart for that was the key of forgiveness.