Ever since I was 8

I always worried about when I ate

Constantly witnessing my parents struggle to put food on my plate

Walking in the snow to the food pantry with bread and cans of milk in a crate

My golden birthday, I saved the date, March 8th

Though I didn’t want to grow up, I just wanted to wait

 

Imagine being 9

Thinking everything is fine

Then your mother starts crossing the line

Leaving home to fill the hole in her heart with alcohol, then ending the night crying

I should’ve seen this coming, I should’ve seen the signs

Walking hand in hand with my mom to buy her favorite, Wild Irish Rose wine

 

“When are these fights going to end?”

I was so oblivious when i was 10

That my parents weren’t right for each other

I wish I knew what I know now, back then

Waking up in the middle of the night to my parents screaming, over and over again

I loved my mother so much, I blamed my father, thinking “What’s the problem with these men?”

 

I remember my moms food tasting like heaven

But she stopped being there full time before I turned 11

Valentines Day, grandma passed away,

Throwing my mother down in a deep hole called depression

I never wanted to be home, but there was no place I could run

Our home was happy but at times it was like there was no sun

 

Always at the library, taking books off the shelves, reading and waiting

To meet boys and do things I shouldn’t have, being only 12

My father worked all day, my mother was like a ghost,

All I wanted to do was be held

I learned about drugs and what they do to people, and my heart slowly swelled

Maybe it wasn’t about me, and my mother needed to be held

 

Finding love in other people, wanting attention like a fiend

Lost my virginity by the age of 13

I thought I was in love, but what the fuck does that mean?

Social media was my escape, my eyes stuck on a damn screen

Who to be and who not to be, I was stuck in between

 

I thought I knew everything by the time my age was 1-4

Every chance I got, I was ready to leave out the door

Until I moved to the West Side, the first week they were picking up a 16 year old body off the floor

I graduated from 8th grade that year, and all I wanted was more

Yay! High School! My next step, I can show people my core

But what I didn’t realize was what life really had in store

 

I was a freshman, having fun at 15

What I didn’t know was how people could be so mean, girls snickering and laughing

Why? I didn’t have money to wash, so my clothes were never clean

Oh, How great it is, being a teen

I started thinking about life, and all these under things

Ended up trying to commit suicide, because of my mental state

Thanks to biology, my parents passed down their fucked up genes

 

Who cares about clothes? Who cares about what people think?

Something hit me just 3 months after I turned 16

I wasn’t worried about who was real and who was being fake,

All I know was that I met this boy, and we knew there was something we could make

I knew what had happened when I noticed my period was a week late

Not using protection just about changed my whole fate

 

Inside me was a human, my baby, my little bean

My first love was that little girl I first seen on that ultrasound screen

Her name is Luna, the cutest I've ever seen

And chunky too, she's definitely far from lean

Its crazy how my daughter hit 1 years old a month before I hit 17

 

But my story is not all what it seems

I'm just going through life like a flowing stream

Day by day trying to build up my self esteem

My daughter is my motivation and we make a great team

And one day I'll tell her the story of mommy graduating high school before she even turned 18