As The Story Goes

There was once a girl
who did everything she was told and didn’t lie.
She lived in a white house that had only one window,
with her mother and father,
who fought loudly
about of a lot of nothing.
And she hated all the words
that came out of her mouth,
as well as the one’s that came out of others',
because they were always trying to fix things
that could not be made better,
and they said all the wrong things.

And she sat up late at night
trying to finish everything she had started
because she felt the need to do anything
that meant something, so she could mean something,
but she never could get done.

And late at night
the silence engulfed her,
and it scared her,
for it was the loudest sound of all,
and it hurt her ears,
and she always cried herself to sleep.

And then she met a boy, as the story goes,
who taught her to break rules every now and then,
who took her places while her parents fought,
who said all the right things at the right time,
who convinced her that she did mean something,
and who called her late at night so she didn’t have to listen to the silence.

And she let herself get a little too wrapped up in the kid,
just like her mother had always told her not to,
but she had just rolled her eyes, wondering what she knew
because it was obvious love hadn’t worked out too well for the mother,
but the girl, she was going places
and it was so amazing.

But one day the boy decided to break her heart, as the story goes,
and she cried like there was no tomorrow
because once things like that happened, they never went back to the same.
She knew what it was like to break rules and lie and sneak out,
she knew what it was like to mean something to someone and to love.
And it hurt to be without those things.

And she realized she never would again be who she was before,
but she couldn’t really be who she was then, either,-
not without the boy she’d let be a little too important-
and that meant she couldn’t be much of anybody,
and then everything fell apart
as the story goes.