Thursday, February 08, 2007  Kick At The Darkness 'Til It Bleeds
Daylight  It’s been twenty years since I walked into the
classroom and saw her. You know, the girl every other girl
hates. My god, she had a beautiful face, perfect hair. There I
was, the new kid, didn’t know a single soul in the room, feeling
horridly self-conscious.  I didn’t have to know any of them to
know one thing: She was in the popular crowd.  And she gave me
such a warm smile. She was the first person at my new high
school to acknowledge my existence.  I was too intimidated to
say hi to her. In my own head all those clique lines of high
school were already drawn and the computations had been done. I
didn’t belong in her crowd.  It’s so easy to look at things from
the outside and see what you want to see. I looked at Susan
Mitchell and I’m ashamed to say I was jealous. I carry that
shame with guilt, because of what I didn’t know then.  That the
warm smile was a testament to her courage.  That even being in
school that day had taken an en