cover me // joshler

six

Tyler woke up the next morning and repeated the same morning routine that he always did. 

Wake up, get dressed, brush his teeth, get criticized by his parents and siblings, skip breakfast, and go to school. 

As he walked down to the kitchen, his mom was standing there, on her phone. She looked up when she heard footsteps, and her eyes trailed over him, looking at him up and down. "Could you please dress a little different everyday? And maybe add a dash of color to your outfit?" she asked. 

Tyler wore a black hoodie and skinny jeans usually everyday. He didn't know why everyone in his family seemed to have a problem with it, he's comfortable in hoodies, and he didn't like drawing attention to himself.

He didn't say anything back, and he grabbed his lunch. "I-I'm going to be l-late.." he said stuttering a bit. 

'Dammit Tyler, I thought you got that down. don't stutter..'

His mom just sighed. "All right, see you later.." she said in a disappointed voice. She used that tone a lot around Tyler, is something he seemed to notice. 

Tyler walked out to his car, with his backpack in his hand. He put it in the passenger seat and started driving to school, he plugged his phone into the aux cord, putting on Linkin Park. He slipped away into the music. 

Linkin Park was his favorite band, whenever they came on, nothing else mattered to him. They will always have a special place in his heart. 

Tyler made it to school and he turned his car off. Before he went into school, he closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. 

'I know we've made it this far, kid.'

His eyes widened and his eyes flew open, that's pretty good. He got out his journal and wrote it down. He was working on another poem, it was called migraine. 

'Am I the only one I know

Waging my wars behind my face and above my throat

Shadows will scream that I'm alone 

But I know 

we've made it this far

kid.'

Tyler smiled and closed his notebook and put it away, it was filled with poems that he wrote, they were kind of his coping mechanism. 

He put it in his bag and then walked inside, he looked down at the floor as he walked to his locker, getting his things. He remembered, today was the day he was switching seats and wouldn't have to sit with Michael. 

But now he would have to sit with someone else, and quite honestly he felt bad for whoever it was. He didn't want to do this anymore .

He walked to his first period class, sitting down. He knew people were whispering about him and pointing at him, but at this point he didn't care, he's become numb to everything. 

He took notes in science class, his mind really never drifted to anything else, besides how badly he wanted to go to a Linkin Park concert. His parents would never let him go to one, never give him that type of money. 

Little did they know that band was one of the only things keeping him alive. 

Tyler sighed, he couldn't believe how numb he felt. He wasn't living, he was surviving, he never liked being alive, never liked it. 

He hoped that one day, things would take a turn. Someone or something would come into his life and change that, make him happy to be alive, something for him to look forward to the next day, something to get him out of bed.