I GOT INTO COLLEGE!!!!!

“Horray!”

“Congratulations!”

“We are so happy for you!”

“Now you can do what you’ve always dreamed!”

 

But SMACK! I hit a huge brick wall on the road to my dreams

I don’t qualify for financial aid….?

Because my mom makes too much money?

But I have a sister who needs help

I have medical bills that have been piling up

My father won’t help me

Financial stopped the day child support ended

It’s just my mom

Alone...

 

High school was a time for me to focus

They told me that if I didn’t, I’d never go anywhere

I’d never achieve anything

I’d end up working a dead-end job that I’d hate

My deepest fear, that looms over me still.

 

I didn’t have time to get a job

But you need a job for money

And money for college

Since I’ve never had a job

No one wants me

No one wants to hire a girl who has no priors

I look lazy and useless

A stupid, silly teenage girl

Whose mommy pays for everything she has

Which is true

But only because no one wants me

 

It’s embarrassing,

Telling people

That no,

I’ve never had a real job

That yes,

I own things like an iPhone

("but only because it was free!!" Not like they care or believe me)

 

They don’t think I’m allowed to have money problems:

Like paying for schools - "So easy!"

Like paying my medical bills - "No biggie"

Like paying to just live - "Stop your whining!"

They don’t know that I feel useless

That I don’t want to talk to my mother about school

Because I don’t want to see her eyes dim

Losing their happy glow and gleam

 

And it more than just angers me

It pisses me off that people look at me and think

“That girl has it easy, why should she complain about anything?”

I’m not paranoid

I can see it in their eyes, they squint, just a hint of a glare

I can see it in the way their mouth will slightly turn

I can see that they’re judging me for something I have no control over

What really pisses me off, yet makes me want to sob

Is what my mom said to me that other day, with tear filling up her eyes

“I’m sorry that I have a good enough job to support you,

but not to get you the aid you need for school”

 

My mom makes too much money

I don’t qualify for financial aid