Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II

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  Placing my baby in the arms of her mother was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. My very soul ached. Even though I still get to see my daughter because I am blessed with having an open adoption, the pain is still there. I can feel it burning inside me every day, when I think about Katelyn. I only hope that when she gets older, she realizes how much I love her. I love her more than anything in the world.

  Today is my daughter's first Christmas. I won't be there to share with her the joy of this season, or to play Santa and open her presents for her (she's only two months old). In fact, I won't be there to see her first step, or hear her first word. I won't be there to take pictures on her first day of kindergarten. When she cries for her mommy, it won't be me that she wants. I know in my heart that I made the right choice. I just wish with all my heart that it was a choice I never had to make.

  Kristina Dulcey

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  It's Tough to Be a Teenager

  It's tough to be a teenager, no one really knows

  What the pressure is like in school, this is how it goes.

  I wake up every morning, and stare into this face

  I wanna be good lookin', but I feel like a disgrace.

  My friends they seem to like me, if I follow through with their dare,

  But when I try to be myself, they never seem to care.

  My mom, well she keeps saying, I gotta make the grade

  While both my parents love me, it slowly seems to fade.

  It seems like everyone I know is trying to be so cool

  And every time I try, I end up just a fool.

  I've thought about taking drugs, I really don't want to you know

  But I just don't fit in, and it's really startin' to show.

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  Maybe if I could make the team, I'll stand out in the crowd

  If they could see how hard I try, I know they would be proud.

  You see I'm still a virgin, my friends they can't find out

  'Cause if they really knew the truth, I know they'd laugh and shout.

  Sometimes I really get so low, I want to cash it in

  My problems really aren't so bad, if I think of how life's been.

  Sometimes I'm really lost, and wonder what to do

  I wonder where to go, who can I talk to.

  It's tough to be a teenager, sometimes life's not fair

  I wish I had somewhere to go, and someone to CARE.

  Tony Overman

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  Not Your Typical Prom Night

  It's supposedly the happiest night of a girl's life (aside from her sixteenth birthday, that is). The night when every girl in the free world does her hair for far too long, spends much more time on her face than she ever will the rest of her life, and waits for Mr. Right to whisk her away to a night filled with excitement, music, friends and fun. Ah, prom night.

  Strange how things always look good in the theory stage, but never in the execution. When I look back on my prom night, I see those wonderful things that other girls sawthe pretty dress, the date, the car. However, that night I also saw something that a teenage girl should never have to seea brother slowly dying of cancer.

  This isn't as morbid as it sounds. My brother was never the morbid type. Everything was always "fine," even though as prom night approached, he couldn't see more than five inches in front of his face, and had limited use of his arms and legs because the cancer pressed on nearly every nerve in his body. It caused him excruciating pain with every touchevery hug.

  This is how I found him the night of my prom. As I

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  entered the room, my father was already there, being a dad and sitting there with my brother, watching whatever sports event was on the television. My brother made a feeble attempt to watch; he could even try to convince himself that he could see what was going on. Looking back on it, he had us all (except for my mother who spent twenty-four hours a day with him) convinced that he would get better. That night I fully believed he saw me walk in the room.

  "Hi, my Dacy," he said, in the ever-so-cute baby talk tone he always used with me. I greeted him with a smile, which to this very day I am not sure he saw. I wanted to give him a hug, but the pain for him would have been too great. So instead I leaned over and gave him a slight kiss on the cheek. He heard my dress rustling as I did this, and I could see him strain to see it. He always tried to hide this act from us, but you couldn't help but notice it. He had this funny way of tilting his head downward, because to quote him: "It's like the bottom part of my eye is cut off and I can only see what is above this line." And he would hold his large hand up and divide his eye in half horizontally, to try to demonstrate.

  As he tilted his head, desperately trying to see me in all my prom-night splendor, I couldn't help but sob quietly. A tear hit my red satin gown and I tried to brush it away, absurdly believing that he could see me.

  "This sucks, Mom," he said, frustrated. "I can't even see my own sister's prom dress." I took his hand and let him feel the satin of my dress. Being the protective sibling that he was, he felt around the neckline, and noticing there wasn't a neckline, began to chastise me.

  "I don't know about this, Dacy," he said protectively. He then tried to look around, and proceeded to call my date over and lecture him on what a gentleman he was going to be that night. I stood back and watched him, this

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  bigger-than-average boy, who couldn't see or even walk on his own at this point, telling my date EXACTLY how he was going to treat his sister. I began to cry. I cried not only for his feeble attempt at protection (actually, as I found out from my date much later, my brother was still able to strike some fear into his heart), but at the fact that God, fate or whatever was doing this to a boy who all his life just wanted to be normalwho just wanted to live.

  I knew at this moment, as I watched him talking, that he would be gone from me soon. Maybe I didn't admit it to myself right then, but I knewsomehow I knew, and I cried even harder. My brother heard me from across the room, and called me over.

  "Don't cry, Stace . . . don't cry." He had changed tones on me. This was the Serious Brother tone now, the you-better-listen-to-what-I'm-saying tone. "It will be okay. It will get better. I know it will." He started crying at this. My mom tried to reassure me that it was his medication that was making him depressed; I wasn't convinced. Those tears were real. He tried to hug me and let me know that it was okay; to let me know that I should go to my prom, and live my life. I gave my brother one last kiss and was gone.

  Stacy Bennett

  Submitted by Diana Chapman

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  No Matter What Happens

  I remember a time when each day was long,

  When the world was a playground and my life a song,

  And I fluttered through years with barely a care,

  Ignoring the future and what waited there.

  School was intriguing and filled with delights.

  I played away daytimes and dreamed away nights.

  My parents assured me I had nothing to fear,

  And that no matter what happened, they'd always be there.

  Little I knew of a world outside home,

  Where tragedy, sorrow and murder could roam.

  All I saw were blue skies, rainbows and stars.

  I looked past destruction of buildings and cars.

  As a child, my biggest concern was just me;

  I had to be happy, I had to be free.

  And if I was content, I would not shed a tear,

  And no matter what happened, I still would be here.

  But as I grow up, darkness starts to set in;

  My bright world has turned into concrete and tin.

  I now see the violence I looked past before;

  My friends start to die and my heart hits the floor.

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  Deadly diseases claim people I love,

  There are landfills below me, pollution above.


  I often think back to when life was a game.

  But no matter what happens, it can't be the same.

  There are days when I just want to break down and howl,

  To give up completely, to throw in the towel,

  But I hold my head high and I push my way through.

  I have too much to give and so much to do.

  And I make a vow that, though it'll be hard,

  I'll go on with a smile and play every card.

  I'll give all I can, help others and love.

  No matter what happens, life will bloom again,

  And the strength I don't have will come from above.

  So come, take my hand, and through darkness we will sail

  If we all join together, we never can fail.

  We'll remember to care, remember to feel,

  And no matter what happens, our world we will heal.

  Alison Mary Forbes

  Submitted by Barry Weber

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  Hero of the 'Hood

  When you have to cope with a lot of problems, you're either going to sink or you're going to swim.

  Tom Cruise

  By all odds, Mike Powell should never have survived. Addiction, drug pushing, prison or early death are the most likely cards dealt to street kids growing up in the ''jungle" of South-Central Los Angelesa violent combat zone of drug wars, gang slayings, prostitution and crime. But Mike's young life had a special purpose. For eight years, he braved terror and brutalization to keep his family of seven kids together. Incredibly, during that time, no one ever discovered that the only real parent the family had was just another kid.

  When Mike was born, his father, Fonso, was in prison for drug dealing. Mike's fifteen-year-old-mother, Cheryl, dropped out of school to support the baby. "Without you, my life could have been different," she later told Mike over and over. It was the guilty glue that would make Mike stick with her through the coming years of horror.

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  Fonso was released from prison when Mike was four, but instead of security, the six-foot-five, 300-pound Vietnam vet brought a new kind of fear into Mike's life. Fonso had severe psychological problems, and his discipline was harrowing. For minor infractions, such as slamming a door, he forced Mike to do pushups for hours. If the little boy collapsed, his father beat him. So fanatical was Fonso's insistence on school attendance that Cheryl had to hide Mike in a closet when he was sick.

  Perhaps it was some dark premonition that drove Fonso to toughen up his young son and teach him self-reliance far beyond his years. Mike was barely eight when his father was murdered in a run-in with drug dealers.

  Overnight, the protection and income Fonso had provided were gone. It was back to the streets for twenty-four-year-old Cheryl, who now had three kids: Mike; Raf, age four; and Amber, one year. Life was bitterly hard, and another baby was on the way.

  It wasn't long before Cheryl brought home Marcel, a cocaine addict who terrorized the family even more than Fonso had. When Mike innocently questioned what Marcel had done with Cheryl's wages as a transit worker, Marcel broke the little boy's jaw so badly it had to be wired in place.

  Marcel soon got Cheryl hooked on cocaine, and the two would disappear on drug binges, at first leaving the children locked in a closet but eventually just leaving them alone for weeks at a time. Cheryl had convinced Mike that if anyone found out what was happening, the children would be separated and sent to foster homes. Remembering his father's fierce admonitions to "be a man," the eight-year-old became consumed by the need to keep his family together, no matter what.

  To make sure no one suspected anything, Mike began cleaning the apartment himself, doing laundry by hand

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  and keeping his sisters fed, diapered and immaculate. He scavenged junk shops for hairbrushes, bottles and clothes, whatever they could afford, and covered up for his mother's absences with an endless litany of excuses. Cheryl and Marcel were soon burning through everything the family had in order to buy crackeven money for rent and the children's food. When their money situation became desperate, Mike quietly quit elementary school at nine to support the family himself. He cleaned yards, unloaded trucks and stocked liquor stores, always working before dawn or late at night so the smaller children wouldn't be alone while awake.

  As Cheryl and Marcel's drug binges and absences became longer and more frequent, their brief returns became more violent. Sinking deeper into addiction, Cheryl would simply abandon Marcel when his drugs ran out and hook up with someone who was better supplied. A crazed Marcel would then rampage through the slum apartment, torturing and terrorizing the children for information about where more money was hidden or where he could find their mother.

  One night, Marcel put Mike's two-year-old sister in a plastic bag and held it closed. Without air, the toddler's eyes were bulging and she was turning blue. "Where's your mother?" the addict screamed. Sobbing, Mike and little five-year-old Raf threw themselves at Marcel again and again, beating on his back with small, ineffectual fists. In desperation, Mike finally sank his teeth into Marcel's neck, praying the savage tormentor would drop the plastic bag and pick on him instead. It worked. Marcel wheeled and threw Mike through the window, cutting him with shattered glass and breaking his arm.

  Cheryl's parents, Mabel and Otis Bradley, loved their grandchildren deeply, but they worked long hours and lived a difficult multiple-bus commute away, and could

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  see them only rarely. Sensing the family was struggling, Mabel sent toys, clothes and diapers, never dreaming that even the diapers were being sold by Cheryl for drug money. Although Mabel's constant phone calls and unconditional love became Mike's only anchor of support, he didn't dare tell her that anything was wrong. He feared his gentle grandmother would have a heart attack if she learned the truthor worse, a violent confrontation with Marcel.

  The family was forced to move constantly, sleeping in movie theaters, abandoned cars and even fresh crime scenes at times. Mike washed their clothes in public restrooms and cooked on a single-burner hot plate. Eventually, Cheryl and Marcel always caught up with them.

  Despite the moves, Mike insisted the younger kids attend school, get good grades and be model citizens. To classmates, teachers and even their grandmother, the children always seemed normal, well-groomed and happy. No one could have imagined how they lived or that they were being raised by another child. Somehow Mike had managed to sort through the good intentions but brutal methods of his father, and blend them with the loving example of his grandmother, to form a unique value system. He loved his family deeply, and in return, the children loved, trusted and believed in him. "You don't have to end up on the street," he told them. "See what Mamma is like? Stay off drugs!" Secretly he was terrified that his mother would one day O.D. in front of them.

  Over the next few years, Cheryl was jailed repeatedly for possession and sale of narcotics and other crimes, and was sometimes gone for up to a year at a time. Out of jail, she continued to have more children, making the family's financial situation increasingly critical. Hard as Mike tried, it was becoming impossible for him to care for three new babies and support a family of seven kids at the same

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  time. One Christmas there was only a can of corn and a box of macaroni and cheese for all of them to share. Their only toys for the past year had been a single McDonald's Happy Meal figurine for each child. For presents, Mike had the children wrap the figurines in newspaper and exchange them. It was one of their better Christmases.

  The young teenager now lived in constant anxiety, but still refused to fall into the easier world of drug dealing and crime. Instead, he braved the dangerous streets late at night selling doctored macadamia nuts, which, to half-crazed addicts, looked like thirty-dollar crack-cocaine "rocks." He knew he risked his life every time he took such chances, but he felt he had few choices. In the nightly siege of gang and drug warfare, the odds were against him, though. By age fifteen, Mike had been sho
t eight times.

  Worse, his reserves of strength and hope were running dangerously low. For as long as he could remember, he had lived with relentless daily fears: Will we be able to eat today? Will we all be on the street tonight? Will Marcel show up tomorrow?