This Kid

Writing

Just Passing Through, Ma’am

This is a town of just passing through. No one stays for long, they’re just on their way through. C’mon, kids. Lets get in and get out of this hell town before winter sets in. Don’t tarry, dear, you don’t know where that kid’s been.

We get all kinds of people here. A lot of them came from somewhere else. I myself came from a grungy little town a ways north of here where you could look down the street and see the NYC skyline, and another continent altogether before that. We’ve got Canadians and New Yorkers and Indians and Taiwanese and even Okies. All tumbled together and clumping and milling and trying not to get too close cuz they know they’re not here for long.

Just til graduation, and then it’s not just off to college; their parents want out of this hellhole, too. The whole damn family will migrate back to wherever the hell they came from and good riddance.

Then there’re people who’ve lived here all their lives. One of my friends has lived in this town since before she was born- her family’s lived in that house since two siblings before her. I know other kids who’ve been in my classes since kindergarten and first grade. The way they’ve changed is frightening, and it makes me wonder, have I changed as well?

I think a lot of people end up staying here longer than they expected. Kids come here and they tell me their stories, and they’ve been all OVER the fucking place. They were somewhere, moved somewhere, moved again in, say, first grade, then in fourth grade, then in sixth grade, then they came here- and now it’s eleventh grade and the time just flew by and they didn’t move again. It’s weird that way.

Then, one day, you get the news that one of them is going. Again. That they’re leaving HERE. I mean, I hate parts of this place, but why leave!? I mean- I don’t know what I mean. Suddenly there’s this huge gaping maw in my life where this person’s presence used to be.

The Bandana Girl left us like that last year. Now one of the girls who draws Smudged Pencil Lines will. Eventually, a lot of people will. Even I want to get out of here and move across the country… but not yet. Certainly not til I’ve got my diploma. Then it’s-

Keep on trunkin’, kids! It’s time to get the hell outta Dodge!

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