middle school

It is a place of endless torment and questioning; a place where you don't know who it is that is walking around in your own shoes.

All you know is that when you wake up in the morning you pray that the outfit you have on will go unnoticed. Yes, unnoticed. For unnoticed is better than to be noticed for the wrong reasons.

You cinch up your belt, wondering why you aren't able to cinch it just one notch tighter. One more notch, Lord, & I will feel prettier.

As you brush your teeth you look at your reflection and wonder why that zit above your left eye just won't go away, even though you've scrubbed it for hours the night before.

You slip on your coat, grab a poptart, and head to the bus. Here goes another try at it... you think to yourself as you slink into your seat, popping in your headphones before someone can have any human, and therefore most likely humiliating, conversation with you.

Once at school you begin to question the way you did your hair, but more than this you question your friendship with her today. You wonder if she really meant it last night when she texted you and said, "Don't worry I would never talk about you behind your back..."

You walk into class, wondering if the teacher would even care if you were absent for the day, and wondering if you remembered to put on deodorant.

Then she walks in and looks perfect and her hair is the exact style you wish yours was, and then he walks in and you know he's going to look at her and not you. And you think that maybe tomorrow when he laughs at her jokes it won't cut you like a knife like it does today.

And then it's lunch time, the most dreaded of all, as you must choose who to sit by. You can't sit too close to him or he will wonder about things, and she will think you're betraying her. And you can't sit next to her because she told four people last week that your haircut was dumb. And if you sit by her then they might think you're not cool enough to ever have a chance to sit at their table. So you end up sitting by your cousin-- who won't exactly earn you cool points but won't get you shunned either. You push around your chicken patty and survive another lunch period.

You make it to the end of the day, only managing to trip over your own feet once. You throw your coat back on, being careful to let one shoulder hang loose to blend in with the crowd, you text her: can i come over l8r? it was 1 of those days...

And you wake up the next morning, ready to do it all over again...