By: Jaida

My eyes have been closed for fourteen years. I am now fifteen-years-old and trying to get my life together after waking up one day and feeling the heaviest regret in my heart. This regret came to me like a flashback.

I looked in my mom’s tearful eyes, thought about the innocent people I took from and hurt. I thought about how my persona now is affecting my younger brother’s perspective on my life and me.

And now how every morning, I have to wake up at the crack of dawn to pay the price of everything I put myself and everyone else through. I guess you could say this was part of my wake-up call, the other half consisted of terrible life experiences that just made me think “damn, I really just need to get it together and fast”.