When I was little, I played by myself, I didn't want anyone to play with me. My imagination ran wild and I sang, I danced and I acted. Funny how none of that has changed. I use to ask so many questions, I use to run away with my looney toons bag on my shoulder packed with my important toys. Even then I ran. I couldn't this time. No instead I walked forward past heart ache, past words that I didn't care for, past the things that didn't matter. I knew what my heart wanted and all I thought was 'Love is Patient, it over comes Fear.'
I remember playing with my barbies, my horses or going outside to just sing..I swear I made up so many silly songs. I sang them over and over, just to get the words to actually sound right. I remember running into the road and screaming for help and had my sisters boyfriend come save me. I thought to myself; "Someone will care..someone must care.." I cried for help for no reason, and he came running..I was laying in the middle of the road just waiting..waiting for something, when I knew this was wrong. He picked me up and ran me to my house and months after that I had nightmares. LIAR. That's all I heard, I knew what did was wrong...I knew calling for help so loud and a women called out saying she'll call the cops..I dreamed about how horrible it was that I did that. I kept it to myself though, the fear.
I learned to keep many things in. In dance, I learned to keep in tears, in theater I learned to keep everything that was going on out and walk in like nothing was ever wrong. But I learned in singing I could express anything I wanted, in the tone or the way I sang it. I could take a sad song a make it a really happy song. It was the way you perceived the music. I learned that I could over come anything in singing and dancing and acting, whether I was hiding or not I could somehow express what I felt. I learned the art of keeping yourself together, especially when it came to school.The girls who I thought were my friends I found saying things all the time, just because they felt like I would never fit in. They felt the need to tell me that I was pathetic or ugly, to invite me to parties and lock me in a bathroom or throw me in the pool, or even show up and be told that my invotation had been "revoked." My heart was heavy burdened by all the torment at school and without even saying anything to anyone, I left. Later I looked back and realized all of that made me stronger and made me look at them and say 'looks who's pathetic now'.
I learned fast that I had to keep it in, hide what they don't know, but somehow my eyes always told a different story.My first year in the Connections Academy I learned I could write and from then on I didn't stop. 8th grade year I choreographed a lyrical dance for a friends senior project, the girl I did it with I thought was my friend..to only be critizied by my size by her mother and her. I looked at myself differently from then. Always the worry. Then I learned I could see myself and build myself to be someone I loved not what they wanted. I walked my own way, my own strut, my own pace. I said what I thought was right, I fought for others, and stood up for things I felt the need to fight for and not once did I give in. I walked forward but not once did my heart give in. I swear I could feel you there all the time. Even in my dreams I found myself in the same place the same time and yet I never stopped looking for you. I sat on that rock watching the sun. I sang to myself when I felt lonely, I danced when I felt like falling, and I acted as if my world wasn't crashing down when others came around. But to kiss you again felt like taking a breath of fresh air, to laugh with you again felt like I was dancing to a whole new song. You see me, so why the need to even hide it? When I know that I can show you.
You taught me, you gotta get up by yourself sometimes, you gotta lift up your head and stop looking at your feet and light you own way in the dark. That I can't always hide what's on the inside, and say nothings wrong or that I'm okay, because we both knew. I didn't have to act in front of you to hide what was going on. Seems like you already knew. I don't need the sadness of things to over take me and just run. I can't. I have seen myself looking in the same reflection trying to understand what I was doing with all this sadness. It turned out I was holding instead of getting up by myself, dusting my feet off and walking on. I had always looked at the positive I thought..When in reality I was looking at this torn picture of myself, this image of imperfection and hurt and lies. You made me feel like I wasn't just a girl, that I had more to me and that you loved that. I realized that I could have all the flaws in the world and that can either make me or break me and instead I let it make me. I look at the good, I look past what people see in others because I know that's there's more to them that they may not even know they had. So no more sorrow, no more pain. I will get up, lift my head, put my shoulders back and walk forward. Because when your little you do that, a boy knocks you down, you either sit there and cry or you get back up dust yourself off and walk away like you have no care in the world for what just happened. But don't ever think for one second just because you don't express your feelings doesn't mean you don't feel them.
I remember when I was little, I sat on my swing and sang of love, when I had no Idea what the word even meant. When I saw you waiting and I climbed out of the car, I felt the butterflies bursting. I couldn't hide my smile. I felt like a little kid, so excited just to see you. I love you I swear it. I didn't expect you to kiss me, and you did. I feel on top of the world! I loved laughing with you, I loved joking with you and I loved playing with you. When I look into those hazel eyes it clicks. I now know I wasn't even close to how amazing love feels.
