Chapter one: mixed emotions

A few days later

"Why do girls think I'm cute but don't wanna date me", I thought to myself. "Well does anyone ever give a damn about you?" A lot of times, I think to myself in conversations. "People only talk to you if they want something, or to ruin your day." My mind focuses on something else, "Why do niggas say they from the trenches when they don't even have they gear, they only have their gun and body armor for some." I look at the gas mask hanging in my room, I got it from my mother when she was in boot camp, the only reason she resigned is because of me, if she were to go to war, I would've grown up without a mother. I turn the lamp off and lie down on my bed, I turn on my tablet and look at Instagram for a while before going to sleep.

The next day

It's 7:15 am, I slept through everyone's alarm, I put on clothes and go downstairs to see a yellow fur ball out of his cage, staring at me. "What are you doing?" I say in surprise, he lets out a little meow, he can't be out of his cage unless he went in the litter box, he has a dexterity problem which makes him unable to walk properly, so we take him to his box and hold him as he does his business. I walk to the kitchen and a large, forest colored fur ball races me to the kitchen, as soon as I get there, he yells at me constantly, "meow, meow, meow..." I ignore him, it's already 7:25 am, I put my earbuds in, press play, and go out the door after putting the yellow boy back. My playlist is on shuffle and the first song to play is "humble" by Kendrick Lamar, Kendrick is my favorite rapper, even his old music is golden. Kendrick raps about real problems, something you don't hear from most of these new rappers. I walk up the block, as I get to the end of the block, a G bus zooms by. I run after the bus for two blocks before I get to the bus. I know people think I'm crazy for chasing a Septa bus, but I don't care, I need the exercise, a lot of times, I don't have the energy to do anything most of the time, I'll never survive track practice. I transfer to the market-Frankford line, I walk to where the front would stop, I pull out my personal folder, "The creations of a brillient kid", it reads. This folder holds all of my drawings, and I get better as I go, lately, I've been visualizing my emotions, I think they look cool. Each emotion is a character inside my head, I know if my peers knew that, they'd think it's lame. I thought about something funny my cousin said a while back, I laughed out loud a little and can already make out people's thoughts about me, "he a crackhead from the ave." I make to fifteenth street and transfer to the broad street line, of course, I had to wait almost half an hour for an express to show up, I need to get to Allegheny, but any train is gonna have to do, I check my folder again, nothings missing. I start thinking about all of my emotions and why I have them, my patience, something keeping me from rushing, keeping calm, and putting up with people's bullshit. My mischievousness, reason why I kicked that car that turned in front of me and also why I wear black forces and black hoodies. My irritation, can care less about anything right now. My insanity, includes laughing out loud in public and with friends, being random, and a very high toxicity, I mean when I'm racist to any race with no remorse, roast anyone no matter your age, gender, race, or affiliation. My excitement, responsible for dirty thoughts, and understanding of homosexuality and all that other stuff, call me what you want, at least I ain't a dumbass that still bandwagons hating gays for no reason. I think some homosexuals are pretty cool, they are people like us after all, you hate some, you love some, no need to judge someone cause they different, I'm all types of different. I get to Girard, at this point, I'm gambling with time, get off and wait for a local or the spur, or take this to Erie then transfer to the southbound local, the Erie option a little dangerous, last time, I got to school at 9:00 AM, but I gave it a shot anyway. Bad idea, damn express took 15 minutes just to get past north Philadelphia and another 20 to get past Allegheny. It's now 8:50 and I'm waiting for the 16 bus, and I get to school by 9:10, I hate the express train.