Sleepy

I sat in class hyper aware I was on my period. In 6th grade, it can be impossible to not think about. Only a select few really hve experienced what you're experiencing right now. I shift in my seat feeling the warm sticky pad between my legs. I sigh softly as cramps roll through my lower abdomen. My teacher is up front droning on about mathematics. My class patiently following the procedure to get to our final goal. That's the game plan- follow the procedure until you achieve your goal.

The bell lets us out to recess. I watch my old group of friends walk onto the playground. They're all wearing black, they have makeup on and they're listening to music I don't quite understand yet. They all have flat ironed hair and smell like Hot Topic and Victoria's Secret. The queen bee Amy's bright blue eyes light up as she talks about her older brothers, her old life in California as a surfer and the new bands she found last night online. This girl was way out of my league; and I felt it. My old friends just flocked to her and nestled in her sunlight of older kid experiences. What a joke.

I swung by myself for a while and then wandered over to some boys playing a game of tag. They also ignore me and pretend I don't exist. I walk over to a quiet area of the playground and play on a new piece of equipment they installed just a few months before. A red, metal car with two seats and a pair of twin monkey bars in the back like a fire engine. I meet this kid named Will and he smiles at me. He's wearing a wrestling T-shirt and has some action figures. I don't know what wrestling is but he teaches me about their names and shows me their moves with his action figure. We smile and laugh for the rest of the 20 minutes we have outside. I can't believe I had never met this nice kid before. For the first time in a year I feel a genuine human connection to someone my own age. I feel like someone is listening to me and someone wants to hang out with me.

This was the only recess I saw this kid in elementary school, but we remain close friends today. Even closer than I could ever imagine us becoming. As his mother would say, "he's such a nice boy..."

Classes continue and before I know it I am driven home. I sit down at the table, argue with my father about having the TV on and doing homework at the same time. He yells at me and tells me that my brain is unable to function with the background noise. I vehemently argue with him back until we're both yelling and my mom comes in. She unplugs the TV- I refuse to do my homework. We're yelling again. My dad lays off for a while and I lay in my bed playing with my Bratz dolls. I ignore the setting sun and the call for dinner. I roll my eyes at my mom who's trying to be the good referee. My father comes in and makes me sit at the table. Then we go around and act like nothing happened. We all have to report on our days. Follow up with stories from yesterday and then clean the table. It's like machinery. Every night the same story. I feel myself changing as a person. I start to see holes where there once was blinding sunlight. I feel empty and alone.

I could never tell my parents this. They wouldn't understanding. They don't even understand their own emotions. For next few years as puberty takes me under its heavy, suffocating wings I navigate this journey alone. I feel things I cannot express and I have urges I do not understand. Everyone in my house smiles, but I feel the weight of my situation squeezing the life out of me every day. I just wish I had seen the train coming before I stepped onto the tracks.