11 Years

I started out at the school when I was… I think 4 years old.
I went there when I was 3 but then I kinda made a bad impression at the nun; saying “your name’s like my uncle’s dog’s name”-which was true, they have the same name-and I was born on September ‘88 and they didn’t want anyone who’s born after July ‘88 so I had to re-take the “interview” thing once again the following year.

See, I knew from the very beginning that it was going to be my school. Probably because my mom kept telling me “this is where you’ll be going to school” the whole time.
I had no idea of what was to come.

Kindergarten flew with a first experience of a heartbreak, being involved in a school play and musical performance (I played angklung, I danced… I danced!) and freaking the teachers out about that murder case that made front page news (because I could describe what happened so vividly; courtesy of my aunt and my parents talking about it a gazillion times).

Grade school passed with other heartbreak experiences and now that I think about it, I don’t have the slightest clue about what’s so heartbreaking about the guy. Maybe because he was all nice to me and then when I finally said (means: gave him a letter) that I liked him he turned into this… asshole.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep falling for the wrong guy. Sometimes I wonder if they’re the reason I’m what I am now.

And then middle school, and it was fucked and traumatizing and haunting and to this day, to this very day when I’m sitting at Starbucks with my legs crossed and my almost non-existent iced black tea, I still can’t get over it. There’s a basic, primordial fear and intimidation that I feel toward that place and I can feel it every time my sister asked me about my middle school experiences-how’s 7th grade? How’s 8th grade? What did they actually do to you?-or tell me the stuff that’s been happening at school.

I miss the place when I was there a month ago-revisited after so many years of avoidance. I hated what it did to me. I don’t like the fact that it still haunts me.

11 years of… that.
And what I have in mind is not the prettiest memory of them all. Not the fact that I got compliments for my english stories. Not the fact that I enjoyed the last year of it and that I was sad to part with my friends. Not the fact that I’ve spent practically half of my life there. No.
What’s left; is the taunting. And the leering. And the whispers. And the feeling; the feeling of having no one.