I had to hustle/
My back to the wall, Ashy knuckles/,
Pockets filled with a lot of lent/
Not a cent
/ gotta vent.
These were the lyrics of my life at this particular point in time. It was the middle of my eighth grade year. I was the new guy at Texas Middle School. I had just moved from Houston to Texarkana, Texas. My mom and I were constantly relocating. She had a repetitive nature for abusive relationships. Some were emotional, but most were physical. Although I never let them get too physical. She promised me she would try the single life for a couple months and see how things worked out. Granted, she makes several false promises; I was willing to believe her this one time.
I had managed to make the school basketball team. I never got any playing time. During the first three quarters, the bench and I would converse. Then fourth quarter took a liking to me; we got acquainted more than just a few times. I have always been smaller than others my age so just the thought of myself playing high school football made me cringe
He just sits/ and watches the people in the boxes/
Everything he see’s he absorbs and adopts it/
He mimics and he mocks it/
Really hates the box but he can’t remember how to stop it/
I am not sure what it is about me but I always look at the negative side of things. One might say I see the glass half empty. It was pretty easy to meet new people who say “hi” and “bye” to me from time to time, but with my being the new guy and being shy at the same time, it would be a while before I acquired any real friends. So as one would expect I got pretty lonely. Then again, I would never be too solitary. No matter where I went my good friend poverty would trail not too far behind. Even with all this going on, I was trying my best to fit in. I was slowly being sculpted by conformity and peer pressure. A good percentage of the student body with whom I was familiar were either into drug usage, or they were sexually active. I was too much of a coward engaged in either.
Despite all my fear, all of my lonesomeness, all of my adversities, there was always one thing that was constant. There was always that one thing that kept me sane: poetry. No matter what mood I was in, although it was usually a pessimistic one, I would be able to translate my emotions to paper with no problem. The hard part was making them rhyme. Slowly but surely creatively expressing my thoughts started to get easier day by day. One day I would be writing about how much I dislike my English teacher, Ms. Harnes, and the next I would be jotting down little nonsense rhymes because they were amusing. It was not until this point that I had realized that I did not have so much of a negative attitude any more. The school days seemed to soar by like a Lear jet in the pale blue sky.

All of a sudden I started seeing things in a different light. Even though nothing had changed my state of mind had. B team was not so bad. At least I made it. I mustered up the courage to try out for the football my freshman year of high school and I was not too bad. I gained a friend here and there and even started associating with him outside of school. Poverty still lagged behind me, but I tried not to focus on it so much. Besides, free lunch is not that bad. I was a better me, and all because I found a way to express my emotions through writing. Now these are the lyrics to my life:

Finally I can say,
Everything today has gone my way
It’s a Lovely Just go paid
Stack it up, be on my way
It’s a lovely day, Lovely day
A Lovely day