turn the corner

For whatever reason,
walking around that corner always seemed like a reality check.
The first time, I was only a freshman,
Full of clichéd hope and excitement that masked the uncertainty -
A smile on my face and a spring in my step.
Yes,
I was already tainted, but I thought the worst was behind me.
The murders, the divorce, the mourning, the alcoholism, the suicides.
The addiction, the dark secrets, the psychosis.
They were miles away,
Left behind with the people who knew.
I was brand new when I stepped out of the elevator.
But,
The second time I turned the corner, I was in love,
The third time, an old friend had stepped out in front of a bus,
The fourth, I was holding my family together by delicate strings,
That were all attached to my own fingers.
The fifth time I turned the corner, I knew things that I wish I didn't,
and the sixth time, i had been hospitalized.
The seventh, I had been violated in my own house,
On my own couch, at my own party, by the boy I thought I loved.
The eighth time I turned the corner, my grandma was dead,
The ninth time, I had been abandoned by the one person I chose to love,
The tenth my child cousin was dead in his sleep,
The eleventh time I turned the corner,
I was not yet broken.