The air is fresh
and the day is new
and the birds are all
singing around me.
It smells like autumn
and the leaves crackling
underfoot
tell me that it is.
It's a beautiful day,
full of colors and
warmth,
and the slight wind
holds only a small chill.
It's a beautiful day
for a walk.
It's a beautiful day
for school.
Not.
My backpack weighs heavy
and threatens to
topple me over
as I trudge towards
the building that
spells out my doom.
First days have always
been a nightmare
for me,
ever since the third grade
when my parents
filed their divorce
and my mother discovered
that her job
wasn't as permanent
as we had thought.
We've moved too many
times to count now,
a result of her company's
indecisive and unpredictable
behavior.
Every year,
we're somewhere new;
every year,
I enter a new school;
and every year,
it's always the same:
teasing and bullying and -
worst of all -
no friends.
I've always hated being alone,
but now, I guess
I have no choice.
My mother has always tried
to encourage me when
I start my first day
at a different school.
I heard her speech again
this morning.
"Not everyone understands
who you are
and where you've come from
and who you are
meant to be
inside your heart,"
as she says,
"but you have to show them
that you're just the same
as they are."
My mother is a very wise woman
who speaks in pictures
and quotes
and little bursts of prose
that make you realize that
she isn't always
quite as dense
as she usually appears.
I respect her
more than words can express -
even her own.
And while I know
she was at first
referring to how
we had moved so much
with that little speech
of hers,
it has now
come to encompass
not only that, but
everything about me
that is contrary to the norm.
My mother was very accepting
when I first came out to her,
but she worried
for my safety.
She, too, has lived
in a world that sees everything
that isn't the same
as different and wrong.
"You are one of
the few greys,"
she's told me,
"while everyone else is
black and white.
It's not wrong, but you
have to show them
that it's not -
because they don't know that
for themselves."
I've never understood why
they don't just
leave me alone
if they don't like me.
Even if I'm not the same
as all the other
boys and girls
in school,
I am human -
and we humans
are all the same
in the end...
Aren't we?
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New story!!! I'm super excited for this. I've been meaning to write something along these lines for a while, but never could figure out how I would pull it off. Now I have (sort of) and I'm very happy with it thus far c:
It's a bit different from my normal style, but it's a nice change, I think. Really relaxing, I guess. I'm also really passionate about the topics addressed in this, so that always helps motivation!
If you guys liked this chapter, please feel free to vote and leave me feedback in the comments!
(Dedicated to foreverballoon for the wonderful cover!)
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Misalignment | ✔
Teen Fiction"There are a million shades of grey between their black and their white - but no one ever cares to see them." In a world with a limited view of gender, Cam Shills struggles to come to terms with their identity as neither male nor female, a shade of...
