How to drink in class without getting caught.
By bringing a metal water bottle filled to the brim with *****.
I learned that goofing off in class is more important than actually doing work.
So I, fall behind
piles of homework on my desk.
Feeling all this stress.
Which is ironic because alcohol is supposed to reduce stress, right.
A smile fixes everything

2. I learned to keep my head held down
Hidden at all times
Because the judgemental predatorial vultures who lurk the schoolyard 24/7 are always looking for a moment to strike.
So smile
You don’t have to mean it just fake it
Just do it so they never know how you feel and never have anything to say about you
A smile fixes everything

3. I learned that I did not fit in because I grew up too fast
When I was born mommy and daddy were fighting
When I was four daddy was thrown out the door
When I was twelve mommy told me daddy was stupid
When I was thirteen daddy told me the same thing
So whose son was I supposed to be?
I came home to comfort my mother's stress because living alone can be a huge mess...
I sat in silence with my thoughts
I didn’t tell my parents how I feel because I was too afraid of what they’d say.
And I knew deep down there was nothing they could do to take it away.
Instead I packed my bags and prepared for a vacation across the city every other weekend to my dad's house. Or “stupids” house as mommy liked to call it
A smile fixes everything

4. I learned how my heart began to feel
And I was terrified that these feelings were real

4. Sadness
4. Abandoned
4. Outcasted
4. Confused
I’m sorry when I get emotional I lose count
7. Angry
63. Stressed
91. Anxious
3627…  Alone
A smile fixes everything. But not a broken heart


5. I learned to be ashamed of who I am.
Every day at school I was called a new name, and when my parents split up I was totally to blame.
Because my parents had so much going for them and then, they had me.
I was their fate.
I started gaining all this weight
I found out  that I wasn't straight
Never wanting to leave home, becoming used to being alone
Because reality, became too scary.
I was never really good at English class until today
When I started to adopt my word of the day.
Suicide
This word soon became my word of the week and even my word of the Month.
I had shuffled desperately through my dictionary and could not find another word, to replace it with.
Hope… that was a word from when I was a kid.
But it seems that my vocabulary isn’t familiar with that word anymore.
That page ripped out by hands laced in hateful intention
By the same people, who always gave me such negative attention.
After all these years, I started reflecting on my life, and remembering what I had done over and over again whenever things got hard.
I smiled.
And in that very moment, I learned that a smile does NOT fix everything.
And sometimes a tear can change a life.

-Adam Purchase