just another teenage love story

Twenty three

I used to get in a lot of trouble. Been arrested a couple of times. I don't exactly have the best track record. At my old schools I was the kid that everyone kept away from, me and my friends were the feared ones. I've been kicked out of foster homes in my neighborhood over and over. Street fights, crazy parties, getting stoned...what happened? Now I'm just some pushover. I mean I was always this girl, but I put together my rebel personality to hide my coward ness. Why did I loose it? I think back to my times getting arrested, I can't help but smile. My favorite was when my two best friends from the foster home and I were tagging the school. I remember spray painting in large black words fuck the education system. Tyler seemed happy with it as he added a small design around it. By the time we were done we stood back to admire it. It looked like something off a students desk that was bored in detention. "Guys cops!" Lexi called and sure enough sirens were heard. Before we even got a chance to book it we were in handcuffs. A small group of our classmates had formed out front and they watched us being hauled away. Alex, the boy who never seemed to be able to get me even though I fooled around with him, was in the front. His face was a blank expression. The cop walked me in handcuffs towards one of the cars and I made eye contact with Alex. I smirked at him and licked my lips. I think it was then that he knew deep down, Tyler Lexi and I wanted to get caught. He smirked back and mouthed 'I'll be waiting babe'. After that my foster homes got switched around again and I got even more community service. I learned how to fight in the first foster home I was put in. I grew up in the orphanage until I was ten, then they put me in foster care. It was a house of four guys, one father who looked ready to kill me, and three sons not much different. It was slightly abusive from the sons part. They would eat all the food and leave me close to nothing, or gang up on me and "rough house" as they called it. More like torture. After three nights I fought back. I wasn't very good, they even laughed, but by maybe the filth time I fought back I was the one laughing. I gave one kid a bloody noise, one a black eye, and the other a busted lip and they ran to their dad. He simply said, "you wanted to rough house and you let yourself get showed up by a girl". They always tried to repair their manhood, but that only made my fighting better. After I broke one of their arms their father got rid of me. First night back at the orphanage is a night I would never forget. Ten years old, I was sitting on the bathroom floor with the shower on. I started thinking about my parents and how they didn't want me, if I was ever going to get out of here, how I didn't want myself. I looked at myself with disgust. That's when I found a sharp piece of metal. Ten years old sitting in the bathtub as the shower beats on me slashing my hips. Cutting for the fact I was unwanted and unloved, for the fact I hated myself, for the fact I deserved it. Seven years later and nothing has changed, except some of the reasons for it.