Broken Wishes

Imagine waking up, and slapping your alarm clock. Just like any other kid, you finally get the blaring alarm to stop making devil noises and rise from your bed. Tired and sleepy thoughts cloud your mind like soup, the cold of your bedroom washing over you like a geyser. Thoughts drift through your mind like fog. Did you do your homework? Did you fold your laundry? Did you remember to clean your room? You finally stand, and clumsily stumble over to your dresser, where your mother has picked out your clothes: a loose t-shirt, and sweatpants. You frown and squint your eyes and turn your head. How were you supposed to style this? You glance around and wonder if she’ll at least let you wear a jacket, but you assume not. After trying countless times to style it well, you give up in futility though you know it’ll drive you nuts later.

You head downstairs to eat breakfast. You see your mom’s prepared breakfast for you: waffles with strawberries and maple syrup coat the buttery goodness. You gingerly eat it, letting your lips gently rest against the fork, waiting for the flavor to settle in. Your mom looks at you kindly, Have a great day she’ll say, and pack your lunchbox with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and baby carrots, even though you’re almost a junior in high school now. You smile and frown, knowing they will make fun of you for not having fancy lunch wrapped up in little bento boxes or the school lunch at least. You hug your mom and go back to eating the waffles, trying to mask your disappointment about your baby lunch by drowning her in love and false gratitude.

You quickly finish your breakfast and throw on your shoes and hello kitty backpack, you wait for your mom to finish the dishes and to slowly get everything in her purse and put on her shoes. You dance around impatiently until she finally unlocks the car door. You frown and sadly sit in the back seat, while the passenger seat remains unused, collecting dust and bits of paper and loose knick-knacks. You don’t even bother to ask your mom if she’ll let you sit in the front, floundering disappointment fills your soul. “Do you have everything?” Your mom will ask, you nod through grinding teeth while your car creaks out of the garage, the barely-even-a-minute-drive-to your school will be quiet, just filled with a longing to at least walk to school, besides it’s too short to even have a conversation about the weather. 

You arrive at school after having the usual disagreement with your mom about not having her walk you up to the front doors like a kindergartner, although you already are treated like one. Kids will be bustling about, some will tower above even the giantly tall gym teacher, while others will barely be able to peek their heads over the small fence. The popular kids will crowd around in a clump, taking over the lobby while they whisper and point and make faces at you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a cigarette sticking out of a student's pocket, you squeeze your eyes shut and try not to think about the smoke.

The bell will ring and you will soon become a fish caught in the riptide, swept up the halls towards your English classroom, your mind will falter as the loud noise makes you anxious and nervous. You enter your English classroom and the teacher, Ms. Walker will greet you with a sympathetic smile. You instantly hate her, even though it's only your first time meeting her. You watch and stare at her as she greets everyone else in the classroom normally with a small smile and pointing at the seating chart. Your mind becomes sick with how she treats you soon after that, she talks slower and louder to you as if you're hard of hearing. "Do you need any help?" She'll ask as if you're too dumb to understand how to take notes on classroom rules. "No, I'm good." You'll say, painfully smiling at her, wishing the earth could swallow you whole. She stares directly at you when she replies, “Feel free to ask if you don’t understand something.” Hatred boils down in your stomach like a volcanic eruption waiting to cause destruction. "Hey, what's the matter with them?" A student asks Ms. Walker, pointing at you. "I honestly don't know, but they're kinda freaky looking." Ms. Walker will giggle. You notice her not only a couple minutes later staring at you and quickly snapping a picture of you on her phone. You don't tell her to delete it though, you just push back the salty tears, after all, this is something you're used to.

After a humiliating first fifteen minutes, you move on to a free write. “Write about anything you wish could be different, or something you wish would never change.” Ms. Walker says. Again, starring directly at you with her I-feel-so-bad-for-you-but-I’m-also-judging-you dark brown eyes. You stare at her, Is she serious?  You stare at your empty notebook paper and pencil in hand, feeling so…empty inside. You write down your name and the date, but you can’t get yourself to write anything else. You can however, get yourself to think of so many things you wish could be different.

You wish that when you woke up, you could crawl out of bed without every single inch of your body hurting in such a way that it makes you want to pass out, that you could pick out your clothes and wear tighter and more mature clothing, instead of having to wear stupid childish clothes. That you could stop worrying for one second about what everyone thinks of you, without having to worry about getting the pitiful looks just for completing basic human tasks.

You wish you could walk down the stairs without worrying that one trip could make your body shatter, that you could eat breakfast without your lips feeling like they're on fire, that you could tell your mom that you want the school lunch or at least pack something else other than boring grade school lunch for once, maybe even she’d let you bring a sack lunch instead of Disney princesses, then maybe you’d have people to sit next to during lunch.

You wish your mom would let you sit in the front seat, or better yet, just let you walk five minutes to get to school, even though you know it would be extremely painful, maybe it would make you seem like less of a baby.

You wish that you could blend in more with the crowd, maybe if you were just a teensy bit taller, and maybe had more hair that wasn’t burnt off, people wouldn’t notice you, maybe if you had at least one friend, you wouldn’t be such an easy target. If you weren’t a wuss for once, you might be considered a bit tougher, just so much that smoke doesn’t scare you, so fire doesn’t want to make you want to run away screaming.

You wish you could tell your mom that the fire wasn’t your fault, and she didn’t have to treat you like a baby, you could be independent, if she’d let you.

Your thoughts will come to a halt and bring you back to reality, where you notice you’re the only person writing anymore, not that you even remembered you began to write in the first place. Your cheeks will burn as you set down the pencil and you will want to cry as you ask the teacher, “Can I use the bathroom?” You don't have to, you just need an excuse to escape this horrid situation.

You practically sprint down the hall, ignoring the extreme pain you're in, you're used to it. Tears running down your broken face. You race into the bathroom and stare into your cold, dark eyes, your face will look like a broken marionette doll, cracked and chipped like puzzle pieces. You stare at the image in the mirror, a face patched back together by skin grafts. You just wish things could be normal again, but you guess this is the new normal for you: the whispers, the doctor's appointments…Was it worth it? You’ll never know because the only thing you can do now, is wish.