i never met you.

i wish i met you.

you were ripped from me so quickly that i never had time to think about what you were doing to me

and now that the years have passed and i am still alone

i still miss you.

i still love you.

hi little brother or sister

it's me, your big sister

the person who needs you most at this moment in her life

and should have been there to say

"no don't do that"

"no you can't do that"

"no we need him or her in our lives"

but i was just 10 years old.

i was too scared to speak and too naive to understand that by being quiet, I was losing someone so precious

i hope you understand.

i love you little brother or sister.

and i'm so sorry.

It's funny

How often I confuse

Falling in love

With falling apart...

I give every ounce

of my being to another person

I hand someone a weapon

That can hurt only me

I trade my being alone

For us being alone together

Absolute lunacy, utterly painful, and ever-so bothersome

But I'd fall apart a million more times

Just to fall in love all over again

When I was little, I said "princess"

And they laughed because it was cute.

When I got older, I said "The President"

And they smiled because I could dream big.

When I was 10, I said "doctor"

And they said that I was dreaming too big.

When I was 12, I said "engineer"

And they said I wasn't good enough.

When I was 13, I said "engineer"

And they said that I wouldn't make money.

When I was 14, I said "engineer"

And they said to be realistic.

When I was 15, I said "I don't know anymore"

And they said to figure it out.

When they ask me now, I say "happy"

And they laugh at me because they think it's cute.

I fell in love once.

I opened up to him. I shared my stories and my feelings; I made him cry, laugh, and smile. I entertained him, and he loved me. I stayed up with him until 2 AM, narrating a nail-biting fight scene and a romantic encounter, while he stared intently at my pages. He took me everywhere: the car, bedroom, living room, kitchen, and for a little while I was his world. Sometimes he read aloud in a soft voice or dragged his slender finger across a line that was meaningful; once, he riffed through my pages and folded a corner. He hung onto every word I said, and when the last page came, the room went silent. He took a deep breath, and slowly dance his gaze across the page. When that last period came, he took another content breath and was done with me.

Just as I grew attached to a him, he decided I'm not worth it anymore. He took advantage every story I had and told his friends and family. He stole every fiber of my being, and I became boring to him. He moved on to newer stories, hardbacks, and modern book, and here I stayed.

On the bookshelf,

No longer story-telling,

Collecting dust,

Closed.

I don't sleep because I'm tired

I sleep to dream about a better life

I sleep to forget the pain of the past

I sleep so no one questions me about my tears

I sleep to drown out the sound of my parents yelling and screaming

I sleep or else I think about hurt and suffering

Sleep protects me from thoughts and others

It protects me from myself.

Math, the dreaded subject that rattles our minds and causes immense stress when test day comes. The class that makes us ask, “Am I actually going to use this in the future?” and “Do I actually care?”

Math, the class that pushes us to be creative and think harder. The subject that shapes our minds and makes us ask, “How can I solve this problem?” and “I wonder if there’s another way to do it.”

I believe in math. Not the classes that teach us about area and perimeter, or derivatives and integrals. By looking behind the large numbers and intimidating equations, we learn life lessons that teach us to stay on path and to question what we are told. This I believe.

When other kids played on the swings, I learned to count. When other kids ran on the fields, I played addition games. When other kids drew pictures on the walls, I wrote the times tables on our windows. I know that everyone is thinking, wow, this kid was a loser. But to me, math was not only fun, but the beginning of a rewarding journey I would face in the future. The most basic in mathematics such as counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing are things we all take for granted. In high school we are focusing so much on the variables, logs and exponentials, that we forget that everything we are learning now, stems from those fundamental mathematical properties. In life, this has taught me that what you learn as a child, your manners, your feelings, kindness, experiences, and curiosity, these things never change. And that sometimes, we need to step back and think about where we came from and who we were in order to understand who we have become and where we are going.

As we move into more advanced mathematics, we learn about concepts that are hard to wrap our minds around. Like how the number zero is both nothing and something, and that infinity is never ending. We learn that i is an imaginary number and that you can take the negative of a number. But we never stop to think how can zero be multiplied to something if it's nothing, and if infinity plus 10 is larger than infinity. We don’t question how an imaginary number can exist and why a negative times a negative makes a positive. We accept these facts as the truth because we are told by our teachers and family that that’s just how it is. I’m not disputing the fact that these are true, but saying that what I’ve taken from these impossible to understand numbers is that it's ok to question concepts that are not easily grasped in order to better your own understanding.

Some of you are probably thinking, “I still don’t understand how any of this math relates to life lessons.” Honestly, it probably doesn’t for you. We are all different in our beliefs and how we learn. Whether it's learning teamwork from a sports field or persevering to perfect a music piece, we all learn in different ways. For me, I believe that factoring equations teaches us to restate things in a different way and that conics teach us that every change comes with a consequence. I believe that our maths tests compare the trials we face in our live and that studying is our preparation for anything thrown at us. I believe in math and the lessons we learn from looking a little deeper. This I believe.

If caring for you is a crime,

Then lock me away

If making you laugh is a sin,

Then send me to hell

If me telling you you're the only one is annoying ,

Then I'll shut the hell up

If breaking up with me is what you want,

Then it's your loss but

My br o ke n h ea r t