Growing Up

Growing up wasn't too easy, 

but it happened really fast.

I never got to be a kid,

or better yet,

I never really knew how to.

It was hard to be a kid when you had so many worries.

When you had seen too many things,

things that aren't even advised to watch on tv for your age.

My earliest vivid memory is watching a man bash his fist

into my mothers face.

Leaving the door open for my sister and I to watch.

The feeling of hopelessness never really went away.

The memory that no matter how hard,

how loud, 

how desperately I cried,

no one even bothered to knock,

to check if everything was okay.

I never really had parents.

My biological father fled the country

before I was even born.

My mother was never physically or emotionally there.

I was convinced that being deprived of love,

of affection,

of compassion,

and virtually any other emotion beside anger,

prepared me for the rest of my life.

However, it crippled the level of happiness

I would ever be capable of letting myself feel.

Aging came naturally,

but experience made me grow up.

I raised myself,

And I did a damn good job.