I have this fear under my skin

I can't reach it,

I can't scratch it

it's just there,

sometimes it subsides

so I barely notice it

and on other days it fills me up

crippling my thoughts

freezing my heart

and slowing my movements,

I can't touch it

but I can sense it,

I know exactly where it is

it hides at the back of my throat

slides down my back

and lands in my stomach

it's a mover

it never sits still

vibrating and expanding

it makes me scared

as it should

for that is its sole purpose

it's not motivating

it doesn't want to make me whole,

I always had it

it's always with me

never leaving, never letting me go

and now it's got worse

with my loss,

with a new missing piece

as if my void had once again expended

moved and shifted,

I worry because of it

I never know if it's real,

or just pretense

does it mean anything

or is it just "my thing"

it pains me, it makes me shiver

shedding tears out of hopelessness

that I often feel...

but at times it fades

and I forget, smiling despite it all

good souls around me

giving me hope...

but today I just needed to let it go

so it falls off my chest,

because it's been circling around me

and demanded my attention,

so in this moment

I let it go

I let it fly,

so it no longer chokes me

and freezes my touch

it will return

for it is a part of life

but for now, I'm letting it go

...........................................................................

I feel like I don’t belong a lot. I feel like I was better off where I was before. Everyone liked me. Everyone knew me. It’s weird going from that to constantly being in the background watching others live the life you once enjoyed. I’m not saying I want to be the center of attention here. I’m way too shy to want that. I just miss my home a lot. I come from a place that isn’t “good”, but it was the best thing I’ve ever had. When you live in the place everyone seems to be afraid of, you meet the most interesting people. We all knew each other so well. And then there were the people who I knew had horrible lives. The ones I wish I could help with every ounce of me. My next door neighbor’s kids were always outside. Their parents never watched them or anything. In the morning, their dad would leave for work, and their mom would tell them to go outside. They wouldn’t go back in until their dad came home at the end of the day. I felt like they were always being rushed to the emergency room. The boy who was around my age and I knew very well was always getting hurt. I remember the time he burnt his hand on the stove. He got third-degree burns from that. His hand looked awful for months afterword. His sister was younger than us, but I still spent a lot of time with her. The biggest thing I remember from her was that it seemed like she was always falling down the stairs. The last time I can recall, she cut her head open doing it. She never said why she was always falling down the stairs. I’ve come up with theories, but I will never know for sure. There was the boy that lived on the street behind me. His mother never took care of them, and one day, when he was only in elementary school, his little baby sister died from not being fed. Then there was the boy who said he loved me. His dad was in jail. He never opened up about why, but he said he would be there until we were in college, so I know it can’t be anything good. There were also my neighbors across the street. Both their children were older than me, so I never really spent time with them, but my mom had their daughter in class. She said she was the sweetest girl she had ever met. I still remember the night that the sound of fire truck’s sirens pulled me from my bed. Her brother had set their house on fire. Everything they owned was gone. I remember seeing her with her face hidden, sitting on the grass in front of my house in my mother's arms. I hope I will never know what it feels like when you lose everything because of someone you love.

I have endless amounts of these stories. No, they are not pretty. Yes, I would love to go back in time before any of these things happened and fix them all. But I can’t. Now, I can just feel an overwhelming love for my hometown. There are so many brave souls there. Not one of the people I previously mentioned told the whole school about what happened. I had to find out from my mom or if they just opened up to me one-on-one. How scary must it be when you have to go to school each day knowing your own father has done something horrible and have no one to talk to about it because you don’t want anyone to know. If I hadn’t been told, I would have never known anything was wrong. How awful must it be when you are in second grade, and everyone is making cards for fathers day, and you don’t know when the next time you will see your dad will be. You don’t know if your father even deserves a card from you. But you have to smile and laugh along with the other kids because they can’t know.

That doesn’t happen as much where I am now. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m sure there are everywhere. I miss our falling down schools which have so much mold, the doctor told my mom if she kept working there, it wouldn’t be long before she died. I miss the park at the end of my street where I would ride my bike, and play, and watch the older kids with their long hair and black jeans that it seemed they never bothered to pull up all the way. I miss driving through the center of the city where all the businesses were. Most of them are abandoned now. My home is falling apart as much as I am. I was always fascinated by the people around me wherever I went. Now, there are jerks and stuck up girls running my school. There, it was the kids who needed it. It was the people who only got fed at school. The ones who came just because there was heat in the winter. We all knew and loved each other even though we all knew that we were hiding something. We ignored that some of us were more fortunate than others. I’m sure there are so many people who I was close to, and never knew the horrors hiding behind their smiles. My biggest secret? I love my friends now. I love all the people I am close with now, but I miss where I was. Although I wish I could bring them all with me and show them that my home is better than they all think, I would move back by myself in a second. This is how I realize that the reason I stay away from most people here is that they are always mad, and they don’t know what a real problem is. That’s why my friend group is so limited. I hate the people who think they are facing the greatest problem anyone has ever known when the boyfriend they didn’t even care about breaks up with them. Now, I am torn. Do I love my new friends or my old home more? What would I choose if given the chance to go back? I guess it doesn’t really matter. My parents would never allow me to go back there. They don’t understand how much I loved it there or how mean people are to me here. So, I’m stuck. Maybe someday I will know if it’s a good or bad thing.