• I must tell you first i'm not writing this because I actually care about all this voting nonsense. I'm writing it to get it off my chest. I could begin with my name, but it doesn't matter. Next time you walk down the street, look around. See the hundreds of faces of people you don't know or care about, and think. Maybe one of those is me. Because that's exactly what I am. An empty face in the crowd. A million stories locked into a skull. But you'd never ever see it. We can begin from the beginning, but that would be too easy. Let's start at the end. We'll work our way back. You know, if you knew me, you might actually like me. I'm sure you've heard it all before, but I'lll give you the rerun. High school student, youngest kid in most of my classes, in classes two years above and yet I remain a 3.7 gpa student. But not too nerdy. Friends with everyone and not abnormal at all. Just an all around girl. Has won ribbons for my art every year since 6th grade, and can write award winning, selling literature and poetry without missing a beat. Can argue down any man on politics or morals, even a teacher. A school nomad, everyone loves me, not stuck in a particular clique. But I still have my best friends. The ones that truly matter and love me. And here's the part where you say 'Why, she has everything she could ever want. What could she possibly be complaining about?" Ah. Didn't you catch it? I never mentioned home. Would you be surprised to hear how every ride home I get is torture? Name calling. Sometimes being hit. Always being complained at about what a nuisance I am. Or how I could do so much better. Would you be surprised if I told you my parents are divorced. My mom an ex pill addict. Marrying abusive man after abusive man. Add in the few lesbian second moms in the middle. Oh, does that not shock you? How about how my step mother abused me all up until the point that i was bigger than her? The long night when she tried to drag me off my bed by my ankles. And when I held on and struggled to get free she called in my father because I had "almost kicked her" to beat me for five minutes straight. The time I cried so hard I threw up when i was 5, and my Father just said i was being dramatic and to suck it up. Would you be surprised to see the scars on my legs? No, You'd just see a face in the crowd. So how about next time your walking down the street, you look a little closer. Because they aren't just empty shells. They aren't just fillers. These people have stories. These people have lives and fears and loves and losses and they go through endless amounts of nonsense every day. So next time you look around, look a little closer. That girl in the produce section of walmart walking with her mother? That may be me.