A piece of me

Once more thank you to the one who writes so much better than I. I am sure you know who you are. Though you may never read this, though you may not care what I have said. I feel that at least it should be said. Maybe if I had said the things I thought and felt then things would be different today. I would not have lost my one love, I would not have tolerated the abuse I suffered.. I would have spoken up and it would have ended. I would not have been beaten, I would not have been raped. Selflessness is not always a good thing. Not at the expense of oneself, ones soul. Its easy to lose yourself in the demands of others. I did not want my mom to be ashamed of me, so I never told her about the beatings I got at school when I was a young child. Just in elementary school. I never told her when he started to try and touch me. I was just in the fourth grade. I knew that things like that did not happen to good little girls and I wanted so much to be a good little girl for mommie. I was, am rather socially inept, book-smart, very book-smart. I was reading before I started kindergarten. By the second grade I was reading The Hobbit and other major works in classical literature, fantasy, mystery, anything I could get my hands on. Maybe this was the beginning of my strangeness. Maybe this was one of the reasons why no would could understand me. I did not do the things that little girls are supposed to do. I did not care about my clothes, I did not have many friends, I did not play girlish games. Instead I kept to myself and to my cats. I studied science just for fun. In kindergarden I was fully capable of explaining mountain formation, volcanic activity, lava types and formations, and plate tectonics. When the adorable older women would tell my mom that she has a lovely child and would lean down and ask in their sugary sweet voices what I had learned today, I would tell them about the dinosaurs, or the earth, the weather, maybe biology or anatomy. Mom said they would always look at her strangely. Why would they do that? Why would they look at me so? Why would those that were supposedly my friends say to me that they are ashamed to be seen with me because of the way I dress? Is there really something wrong with wearing tee-shirts and ripped jeans?... for being.. different in some way. Is that really all that bad? Is being different from everyone else a bad thing? I think not. I find it wonderful to be different. I cherish the differences in others, why can they not cherish mine? Will there every be someone that is willing to take me as I am? As odd and as different as I am? Will they be able to accept my music and my flute, the central pillars in my life? Will they accept my cats and be able to understand why I love them so? Will they understand that at times things have been hard for me, really hard and not care? And not treat me differently? Will they understand why I am slow to trust? That I have been used and am hurting? Will they love me despite all my many faults? Will they love me even when I fail, when I fall? My tears fall fat and heavy, leaving trails of fire in their wake. They have been pent up for far too long and burn me in their haste for freedom. I hope they can chase away my greatest fear, that I will always be alone.