Tick tick tick tick....
Bang!
A textbook slammed on my desk to pull me back to class from where i was lost.

A clock. A simple object sometimes a simple distraction with a tick sound that for most is easily blocked out.
Not me.

My brain is wrapped in train tracks with overflowing pit stops an non of it ever shuts down, the train is constantly going at full speed and randomly will come to an abrupt stop at a pit stop not of my choosing.

So while sitting in a room with everyday items and situations every and anything is something alien to my brain. My eyes never knowing where to look like two scared trapped creatures trying to find a way out, left right left right up down up down corner to corner to corner .

My hands constantly fumbling with something, my toes wiggle or i shake my legs kinda how you shake your water bottle when you want the flavor powder to mix with the water, oh while i was thinking of that im now in trouble because I've drifted away from my seat and have been touching random supplies and talking to everyone but its ok i made my teacher and everyone else laugh so im not as in much trouble but i have to sit back down and focus on the lesson which is i don't understand bc all i hear when someone speaks is the sound you hear when the adults speak in the peanuts.

Before i realize what im doing i find my self with pencil in had doodling on my desk spirals an squiggles along with funny the characters , i wonder if anyone else notices the fly on the window, what if its literally spying on us gathering information to inform the bug an insect armies they are being trained to take out humans.

Tick tick tick tick...
My eyes dart over to the direction of the sound to find myself back at the clock and its like i jump out my body and dive into the clock which is full of crazy fast moving gears that i run on and jump from one to the other following the sound of the ticking because i swear theres a tiny room hidden in the clock and the sound can be changed.

While I'm traveling around my weird clock world when someone speaks to me i freak out because my ears finally register there's something else wanting to be heard and then everything shatters i jump back into my body an spazz out like whoah who's that who are you what are you saying why are you speaking to me Oh! Its only Rachel the friend I've had since like 2nd grade.

The days are so different, sometimes I'm a social crazy person who talks till you tell me to shut up and im constantly wanting to go to stuff and sometimes im difficult to keep under control while others days the world freaks me out i mumble my words i can't think or speak and i get anxiety that builds and builds up pressure till i breakdown, people make me nervous, large crowds give me panic attacks, talking to someone or having to answer something makes me want to cry until the room fills up with tears like alice in wonderland.
I'll stare at you and while you speak but i can't hear you my brain doesn't process your words or that your actually there, i look at you but i don't see you, i look at your lips an there clearly moving but i can't hear the sounds or make out the words , I've probably only been focused on your tiny freckle under your right eye that most wouldn't notice unless you pointed it out.

Then there are outbursts that are so confusing, like ill freak out if your clicking a pen maybe i didn't yesterday but today i know i will, you wanna have a conversation today? I think not because whatever you're talking about for some reason today it just ticks me off so i just want you to stop talking and leave me alone. Textbook on the left side instead of the right side of the table today well that is just not ******* ok with me so i sent your name and address down to hell on a post card. You wore purple shoes today? Well ******* DUDE THAT MAKES ME ANGRY AS HELL FOR SOME REASON I DON'T UNDERSTAND. While at time the mirror becomes an enemy an seeing my reflection makes my blood boil and makes me want to smash it into a million pieces.

Im on a constant rollercoaster and my head is a chaotic fair everyday. Simple tasks for you are daily battles i struggle with and i don't really understand myself but they don't need happy healthy kids who feel there in control of themselves an there actions. They need well behaved kids who make good grades and get acceptable test scores that do as there told.

So i get a doctor who will squiggle some stuff on a paper, tell all the parents to pump there kids with drugs when they don't act how they want then the teachers shove you in a tiny empty room with no one else so i take the test and get those test scores there dying for but i don't posters taken down or the stapler put in a drawer or the clock taken of the wall because those aren't my only distractions, im my own distraction i can escape inside my head for hours on end or i can stare at my hands for the whole day thinking of every detail on my hand in deep detail like its crazy.

A ****** for me is that i love art and i love writing but writing is hard i know i make alot mistakes but also sometimes my stories or poems or whatever im writing can change into something different or i go off topic because my brain never stops what ever pops into my head i write it as i think it even if I'm writing an essay on president Lincoln if cheetos pop into my head I'll start writing about like oh president Lincoln was the... man i like cheetos ya know there so orange an taste so good an like you can have crunchy or puffy, crunchy cheetos are my favorite i wonder if president Lincoln would've been a crunchy or puffy cheeto kind of man.

I need a big trash can for my brain.

My body laid against the earth broken, the soil cool on my skin.
My fingertips and toes tingled as if millions of pins an needles were dancing on them, my breathing slowed, my heartbeat was coming to a stop and my eyes grew heavy as they looked up at the stars before finally closing.

My body decade , my bones that caged my heart turned to ash, the rain washed it all away while my heart sunk into the ground.
Here where my body once laid a patch of roses grew blooming into the warmth reaching towards the sun but wither and hide from the darkness an cold.

Patiently waiting until the warmth returns once more.

I was a snowflake in a world of ashes.
I grew up in a broken city made of old bricks, busted windows and lost dreams.
Block baby from the bricks, that's what my father called me.

He loved me and i loved him but so did the streets. They called for him and he would go to war, it wasn't picture perfect but he provided and protected.

I remember blue lights, gun shots, sirens, broken families, crying mothers, and children jus wanting to know a father or mother.

Soon i was lost and afraid.
My father was taken from me, cuffs on his wrist and his body shoved into the back of a caged car.
My mother ran away leaving me to fight the world on my own.
My grandmother stayed and raised me as well as all the kids who grew up on that block needing someone to love them.

Everyday was a like living in a war.
School was a battleground.
A young girl not knowing the answers to the questions i was asked.
My father and grandmother were black and i wasn't it never crossed my mind bc they loved me and that was all i could see.

I was asked and asked and asked,
" why are you white?" " how does your hair get so curly and puffy?" " why'd your mom leave?" " where did your dad go?".
I was told and told and told,
" your probably lying about your family" " you might be adopted" " that's probably not your real dad" " you should really flat iron your hair".

I pushed the world away, i was angry, sad, and broken. I fell apart
I became my father, the streets raised me how they raised him, it called my name and i answered, i sold my soul away hoping it would numb me. I realised the streets could take away family but also give you family .

My grandmother told me i was more, she wanted me to take over the world, she told me i would accomplish great things but if i stayed i might not make it , so she decided it was time my mother grew up an became part of my life.

I left home , i left behind who i was, i left behind a life i never planned on looking back on, shortly after news that my grandmother passed reached me and i felt more alone than i ever had before.

A new start wasn't any better.
In school they asked us " what do your parents do?" How am i to answer in front of judging new eyes, " my mother stays in bed all day depressed with pills as her only friends" " my father was a gang banger who wasted away behind bars until the day cancer put him 6 feet under". If those were the words that left my mouth only God knows how'd they'd react.

I fell in love with a boy and he reminded me of home.
He was everything i left behind
He was from the bricks
He grew up like me
He lived the life i lived
I fell in love with what i was running from.

But the world was still cold
He wasn't white so they told me it was wrong
They said he wasn't good enough
He wasn't smart enough, that all he knew was dealing and stealing
But he was so much more.

He was perfect to me
His mind is beautiful and brilliant
His arms are warm and safe
He works hard bc he wants to make it out the street life
He holds me when when i cry
He holds me up and i support him.

I fell in love with what i was running from,
He was home to me
But also so much more.