By Angelica Flowers
I believe there should be more public schools for the arts so more students like me can discover their talent and go further with it. We especially need more of these schools in urban areas for children of color to attend.
My story is tragic but powerful, maybe even inspirational. My mother was only seventeen years old when she had me, and she never finished high school. Until this day, my mother still believes that she did everything in her power to keep her children safe. Sadly, I believe otherwise. I had to raise my younger siblings, I had to stop going to school to make sure my siblings were going to school and doing their homework, and I had to cook. I love my mother to death, but I can probably never forgive her for the type of life she provided me. The men in her life were being physically abusive towards her and mentally, verbally, sexually, and emotionally abusive towards me. My mother never did anything about these men abusing me.
Telling my mother about her last boyfriend sexually abusing me was the hardest thing I ever done. After telling her, these words came out her mouth: “ You’re a liar! I wish you were never born! You’re the worst child I ever had!” I couldn’t help but cry, trying to understanding why was she saying this to me.
When I was sent to live with my grandmother, I hated life. I felt like what was the point of going to school and graduating, I wasn’t going to be anything anyways. My grandmother taught me how to use paper rather than turning a person or wall into my personal punching bag. She gave me a pencil, a piece of paper, and told me to write what I was feeling. This is what came out:
That HE keeps getting caught in HIS own lies…
HE thinks you have nothing to offer,
And it never occurred to HIM that you’re HIS ONLY DAUGHTER…
I had a lot of pain in my heart about one specific person: my father. I expressed my feelings from my heart on paper and she couldn’t believe how I made the words on the page flow together. She turned writing into a form of therapy just for me.
Writing is an artistic way to get to know a person or to get people to listen. When I write, I try to make the reader stay engaged and feel what I’m experiencing:
Your mind starts racing back to all those years…
Thinking about all the hurt and pain HE caused,
You look in HIS eyes and yet you still can’t see HIS flaws…
I write about my life and who I was versus who I am today.
Sadly, I am not the girl who can let go of her past but I am not a victim of my circumstances anymore. I have my own blog called Angelica's Floetry, where I write down all of my poems and feelings, I wrote my own article about the grieving of my grandmother’s death. I will be the next Maya Angelou, yes me, the girl who can put her thoughts and feelings on paper and turn it into a masterpiece.
