Innocence,
where did you go?
I swear just yesterday
I was a little girl in fifth grade
who told herself that she was going to do something
BIG.
But here I am
typing away endlessly,
questioning why things are this way
because I swear
there were two paths my family could have taken
when I was in fifth grade,
and the most difficult one was chosen for us,
and I don't know if I can handle it.

My sister drinks, smokes, and has *** too much,
she's only 19,
she has told me over and over again
"Don't be like me, because I did this,"
and then she proceeds to explain to me,
in very vivid detail,
what she has done.
But I never wanted to hear it.

My other sister, who is now 21.
I was not very close to from sixth grade
to my sophomore year in high school.
I couldn't have told you what her favorite color was,
and she couldn't have told you mine.
But I idolized her.
So the day I learned that she was like my other sister
for her high school career,
was the day I learned how useless pedestals were,
because people always seem to fall even farther,
and the impact hurts everyone even more
than it could be imagined.

My brother, who is 16,
is the one I absolutely adore.
I always try to be there for him
whether I am at his games
or just hanging out with him.
But the days where he doesn't say anything,
scares me.
Because I can't tell if he is okay,
and all I want to know is if someone is okay.

My parents are the best I could ask for,
but I am always under so much stress from them.
I feel like they are putting all of their hopes and dreams on me,
as if I am the only one who will do something with their life,
and that terrifies me,
and depresses me.
The expectations are not something that I wish to go through,
because they aren't my expectations,
they are somebody else's ideals placed over my own.
I also don't like how much work I do for my family,
and how much work I do in school,
only to get nothing in response,
not even a thank you.
I just get told of how I could have done it better.
I know that those sound minor,
but they still cut deeply,
because it feels like no matter how hard I try,
that I will never do anything right.
They also count on me to watch my niece and two nephews
and it has taken them two years
to mention how much I have done for those troubled kids,
whose situation tore me apart.

In sixth grade I became an aunt,
because my half-brother is an idiot
and he got this girl pregnant.
Because we are a nice family, we offered to take in this girl
and try to give her an opportunity in life to do something.
But she just lied and manipulated us into thinking
that she was going to school,
and that she was being a good parent,
and it worked,
But, one day we found out the truth.
My mom saw her out of school
when she was supposed to be there,
and then discovered that her school notebook
had only one page of notes for a month of school.
Then we all saw her hit her child's hands
and then face,
then spanked her child for crying when she needed a diaper change.
Then one day,
my half-brother and his girlfriend
took my niece away.
I was in seventh grade at the time,
already dealing with my own bullies and demons,
but that day is burned into my memory.
It changed my life forever,
because I honestly believed that I would never see my niece again,
I believed that she would be dead in the next year.
I gave my niece a kiss on her forehead,
and I prayed to God that she would be okay.
I ran into my house and I cried.
That was the day that all of my innocence was taken away.
Everything has been my own Hell since then.

And I really miss those days where I looked at the world
as this beautiful and exciting place
and where every new answer fascinated me
to the point where I loved asking
Why?

But now I hate that question,
because there is never really a straight answer anymore.
*To be continued...