A Look Through my High School Yearbook

My mother always asked me “What would you do without a book?”

At first I would think about going crazy

But then I realize that with out a book

I’d be okay to be me

I paid 50 dollars for this constant reminder

Of how I should be me

When I open my high school yearbook

I remember I’m not free

When I open my high school yearbook

There’s a story to be told

I long to fight this story that taught me hate

I hope I can end the story before it gets too late

There’s the friend I put everything aside for

Staying up late to finish her homework for her

Just to get the door

I sit and think about how I lost a friend

But let me tell you something

I learned a lesson in the end

People will build you up

And then tear you down

Brick by brick

But I learned that being a strong person meant

Putting the bricks back together

And learning not to fall

People will constantly be grabbing at the bricks

That’s when you put up a wall

When I open my high school yearbook

I see the girls who had it together

Every hair was perfectly in place

No matter what the weather

But when I open my high school yearbook

And I see these girls

I feel sorry for them

They have set the standards for everyone else

But no one has seen them when the make up is off

Maybe they’re hurting?

They probably are

And under their masks, they’re not okay

They feel the need to hide these scars that make them who they are

And I want to tell them, even after all the tears they’ve caused me

I want them to be okay with who they are

When I open my high school yearbook

All I see are pages

Pages that are waiting to be set free

All of the secrets

I guess it has to be me

I set a flame to the book

The book that kept us all these years

The girls who couldn’t be themselves

The people who sat on the bench because of who their parents were

And the ones I wish I could still see

All these years we’ve been locked away

And I’ve finally found the key

I am the Moses of high school

Now everyone is free

And when my daughter brings home her yearbook

She’ll tell me all these things

That this girl made her life hell, but she still longs to be her friend

And that person is the basketball star

But what she doesn’t know right now

Is that they don’t know who they are

I’ll tell her that it’s time to close the book

That she needs that to be free

All these challenges and people pressuring her

She won’t remember

Because my daughter will know

That the only way I became free

Was to tear away the pages and realize

It's alright to be me

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