"You might be poor, and your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace." -Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes
What happened that night was not uncommon for Niall, because it happened almost every evening.
Life hadn't exactly ended up like had wanted it to, but he, along with the rest of the world, knew that he wasn't going to end up rich either.
Sitting by the corner of an old brick warehouse in one of the most gang, rape, and drug permeated parts of the city was a flaxen-haired 17 and-a-half year old clutching the only photo he ever had. It was of his mother on her first day of secondary school. She had given it to him for a very special reason, because she had never finished school, and that was what she wanted for her only child. An education.
Other people probably thought it was unusual to have a picture of a parent on one of their first days of school, but to Niall, the photograph meant the world because it was the only thing he had to remember of her. The only question was 'How was he supposed to go to school when they couldn't even afford to pay for the groceries?'
~~~~
It seemed like his whole life was over when she left. Maura knew that she couldn't leave a small boy out on the streets to fend for himself, and that's why she waited until he was sixteen to do so.
They lived in an ugly and wretched world where most thought of nothing but themselves, except for the teenage girl who was kind enough to ask her parents for money to drop into his black guitar case which lay upon the ground.
A simple smile, and a simple song.
~~~~
Tonight would be no different. Some stranger, man or woman-Niall had stopped caring long ago-would walk up the street, give him a look of mock sympathy, bend down, grab his crotch and say something along the lines of "I know just how to make you feel better sweetheart." And finally, they would drag Niall into the alley behind them for a round or five.
He knew what he had gotten himself into, and he knew that there was no getting out of it either.
The gaping holes in his small clothes, the dirt underneath his nails and the grime burrowed under his skin. The threadbare blanket and the pillow that didn't even exist. How the layers of skin on his thin lips were peeling off because he bit them so much. These were the constant reminders of his tragic everyday life, and his past that never seemed to want to leave him alone.
-05.06.14
