As she laid on the bed in the hospital, limbs unmoving. Machines helping her breathe and maintaining her body. No sparkle in her eye left. I couldn't do anything to help her. They took her to do a CT Scan and I paced the room, then sat down and rocked, back and forth, back and forth. I was on the verge of Hyperventalating. My world was falling apart. I didn't know what to do without her.

They brought her back to the room and said, "She is brain dead"

We said, "Pull the plug. She doesn't desrve to be a vegetable hooked up to wires and machines."

They pulled the plug and I laid on top of her, hugging her for one last time. I cried my eyes out as her body no longer was warm. Her body was lifeless and there was no need for her to be a vegetable.

My best friend was my older sister, Renada R. Riggins

Coming to terms with being bisexual was really difficult. I kissed a couple girls in middle school and was bullied severely for it. That guilt stayed with me until my junior year of high school when I just couldn't lie to myself anymore. Once I finally acknowledged that I liked girls too and that it's okay, I was so relieved.

It took me a little bit to work up the courage to tell my parents. Living with my mom and stepdad, I decided to tell them first. We were out to dinner at a nice restaurant when I announced that I had something to say. The words were stuck in my throat. Somehow saying it out loud was something else entirely. What if everything changed? What if they started treating me differently? I took a few deep breaths and reassured myself about my decision. My parents are incredibly liberal! They have so many friends who are gay. Finally I blurted it out. "I'm bisexual."

My parents looked at each other then said "okay." I was a little surprised at the lack of reaction. They seemed to almost... Not care. I was hoping it wouldn't change anything, but this was incredibly underwhelming. On the car ride home, I expressed my disappointment at their reception of my announcement and suddenly things went from underwhelmingly boring to overwhelmingly hurtful.

It turned into a debate over whether or not one can be bisexual. My stepdad saying that eventually if I'll fall in love and if it's a guy I'll be straight and a girl, I'll be a lesbian, but I can't be bisexual. My mom said something even worse. It started with the classic "how can you know if you've never had sex?" Then as the argument went on she said she had always thought bisexuals were just people who couldn't admit they were gay and that if someone was really bisexual, they would just take whatever they could get. I was told that I was confused, not gay enough, not admitting to being gay or just a slut. Needless to say, it was a horrible night. I gave them a truth about myself and they gave it right back to me, battered and bruised. They never spoke of it again. Everytime I've brought it up, it's been brushed off.

I was hoping that nothing would change when I told them and unfortunately I got exactly what I wished for.

All my life I was seen as “different” by my family and so called friends. The reason? My upbringing of course! As a black kid whose father was in the military, I moved around a lot and experienced different cultures, accents, foods etc that other kids living a stationary life did not experience. Due to this, I never got a chance to develop solid childhood friends, I never developed a regional “accent”. This caused me a great deal of lifelong problems.

You see, I developed my own likes and interests. I had a few associates so I read a lot, wrote a lot, and I tried my best to pronounce words correctly and learn their definitions so that I could utilize them in daily conversations. I loved pro wrestling, comic books, video games and novels. I didn’t realize those were negative traits until I moved to the south.

“Burnt cracker!” That was shouted to me quite a few times throughout high school. Not by white kids, but black kids. Kids that shared my same skin color, kids that shared my same heritage, treated me like an outcast because I “sounded too white,” because I “liked white things,” and because I “have a dad” (yes, that really was said to me, I was too white because my mom and dad were still together and in my life). Therefore, since white people were known as “crackers” I, being black, was a “burnt” one. That left me in an ugly position in the school social hierarchy. I wasn’t a jock because I didn’t like sports. I wasn’t a nerd necessarily, because my grades were average at best, plus; the nerds in an attempt to be cool, didn’t want to be seen associating with me. I wasn’t accepted by the cool kids because I acted too white for them. I wasn’t accepted by the cool white kids, because they wanted to be accepted by the cool black kids and associating with me would kill that for them.

So, out of a school with over one thousand students, I was alone. I felt in a way, that my “people” had turned their backs on me. In turn, I turned my back on them. I don’t associate with people long nor do I value friendships like I may have if things were different.

My loneliness has brought me more peace then trying to fit in.

I'm too damn dependent. If I wanna do something, no matter how badly I wish to do it, or how passionately I want to, I need approval. I need someone to tell me it's ok to do. I need someone to provide steps on how to do it. I need someone to tell me they'll be there with me, or will do it with me.

Also, I'm very backwards. I'm strong, yet very weak and cowardly. I'm smart, but very naive and a bit dumb. I'm closed off, but too trusting. I'm set in my beliefs, but openminded. I care about almost nothing, yet I also care about way too damn much. I'm cold and numb, yet can be sensitive and easily brought to tears. I'm afraid of so much, yet I want to do and try everything no matter how scary. I am very depressed and I hate myself, yet I have an extremely strong will to live.

Basically, it's like a giant storm is going on inside me and it's ripping me apart into so many conflicting feelings and I just need someone to stay by my side and tell me it'll be ok and that they're always there to help. But no one wants to do that and I completely understand why. I wouldn't want to have someone who always depends on me either. So it's a bit hard to push myself to keep going and to try, when I want nothing more than to just give up and not exist anymore. I wish there was an easy way to do things, but there's not. And wishes don't do anything. Actions do. And I hate that I can't bring myself to act.

When I was very young, I was teased for having a large nose. “It’s like a mountain on your face.” “Can you smell China?” “Your face must weigh a ton.” By the time I was in High School, I had decided I would have plastic surgery as soon as I was old enough. I desperately wanted to have the dainty, delicate noses my friends had, the button noses all the pretty girls had, and felt like the unsightly mound in the center of my face was the only thing people noticed about me.

Sometime in my junior year of high school, I started a geneology project going through my family tree. I knew my family was German because of all the times I cried to my parents about my nose. “It’s your identity with our family. Why would you not like something that defines you?” Uh, I don’t know, Mom. Maybe I don’t want to be defined by the size of a facial feature? Anyway, my grandmother had kept family pictures datings back to the early 1900s. One picture that sticks in my mind is my great-great-great grandfather Zenidakr... uh... Zenaduka... His nickname was Zed. In Grandpa Zed’s picture was a stoic black and white german man with dark hair, bright eyes, and a large nose that looked exactly like mine.

I’m not sure why this impacted me so much, but here I was looking at an old photo of someone I had never met, but we looked so much alike. Here is this complete stranger, and I shared a bond with him that can only be claimed by a small community of people. In that moment, I no longer cared about the teasing and self-loathing of my appearance. Anytime I would start to feel down, I would remember my grandpa Zed.

I now love my nose, and I love telling the story about how my siblings and I inherited this feature. I got my nose from my Grandpa Zed, blue eyes from some freak gene my grandmother has (everyone else has brown eyes in her family), my curly fluff of mermaid hair is from my other grandmother, my hands are from her as well, waist and legs from my momma, and sarcasm from my dad. I haven’t figured out where my feet shape comes from. My sister and I are the only ones in our family with our specific toe and heel shape, and it’s quite strange. Ironically, my soul mate has different feet from the rest of his family, too.

I’m a huge mishmosh of features and temperments that can be traced through my family for years, and my children will carry on these traits into future generations. How crazy is that? To think that 200 years in the future, I will have a great-great-great grandchild who will look just like me, but they will at the same time be a completely different person. Humans are amazing, and I hope you learn to become fascinated by your traits as much as I have.

I’m not quite sure what I’m implying to say but this is what I have got to tell right now.

If I have to tell anything about myself, I don’t think you’ll be interested to know my feelings. Well, this is what I have observed recently. People only would want to listen to your feelings only if your feelings are different from what is basically heard. Different! Difference is what matters I guess.

Everyone hate themselves they say but that’s what almost all says and so do I. This hate probably has its source in the problems one face. Everyone’s problems are not same and they are not small either. But my problems are certainly small and they hurt even so the same.

I’m not, as everyone, someone who can stand strong in the predicament’s face. I’m so scared of most of the things and now I feel bad for saying same lines said by most people.

I think that a beautiful song can stir the soul’s silence, also a sad song can conjure up the soul’s cries.

Well I believe that :

A solution to get away from problems of reality is imagination, and a dose for over imagination is a cup of reality.

Something about myself : I have unstable mind that jumps unknowingly from one theme to another.

Why I feel that way : Already said and proved! Each paragraph was not much related to the next.

I'm indecisive.

No, wait. I'm naive.

No, wait. I'm introverted

No, wait, I'm attention seeking.

No, wait, I'm just a bit of a crybaby.

No, that's not it. I'm an impatient boy.

No. I'm not a boy. I'm... I don't know what.

No. I know who I am. Kind of. Maybe. Or maybe

I'm just nothing. No I'm this. No I'm that. Maybe I am

This and That. Tit for Tat. Who am I? None of your business.

Maybe I am jealous. Maybe I am trash. Maybe I'm underwhelming.

Maybe I am stupid. No, I'm just challenged. Challenges I face

Every day, but I don't know why I'm facing them if there's

No end to the rainbow. I face insecurity in my daily life.

I'm just a bit confused. I'm just a bit unsure. I know

I am full of maybes and questions with no answer.

I am full of yes and no, all mixed into one.

I am just a kid who's trying to figure

Everything out on his own. I am

Alone in a crowded room of

People that I know.

I am Maybe.

*ignore this i need to fill the word count limit. thanks for the challenge*

I’ve been able to see “people” since I was young. It got stronger when I was a teenager.

I’d get these visitors while I was asleep or thought I was and wake up scared because I didn’t know if I was safe.

Also, sometimes I’d dream things that came true or that when I was dreaming it felt like it meant something I didn’t understand yet.

And to tip the scale of weirdness, I could meet real people or be with friends and just know something about them and months later it would come out.

These things still happen to me. They don’t scare me as much because I can usually tell if the things I see are meant to harm me. I pay more attention to my dreams and seek their meaning so I can try and find peace of mind. As for the knowing things, it catches me off guard every time still.

When I was a little girl my mom said she was a witch and that meant her children were witches too. It was cool when I was little but I rejected it as a teenager; obviously.

Now as an adult I love and respect these abilities and wish that I had tried harder (or at all) to understand and nurture them.

Perhaps if I had I’d have grown up with less anxiety or would have been able to take advantage of opportunities I didn’t understand were opportunities. I wonder how different my life would be now and what things would be the same because they were meant to be. The only thing I can do to eliminate this sense of regret or envy of my past self is to nurture these gifts now and see where it takes me.