Ever Since

My self-esteem has been raped
Taken away from me
Ever since my mother's boyfriend
Decided to touch a three-year-old
Ever since that relative
Touched me in an indecent way
Ever since all the fighting and hatred
Leading to my parents' divorce
Ever since my father chose her kids
Over his own blood
Ever since my only source of help
Sat in Broken Spoke all day long
Ever since I took the consequences
Of someone else
Even since I attempted suicide
All the precious time I wasted
Ever since March of 2002
When my friend took his life
Ever since June of 2002
When my best friend took his life
Ever since I ruined my police record
WIth one felony, three misdemeanors, and two non-traffical citations
Ever since my body
I started cutting
Even since I got drunk
Cut my hair off
Started using everything
Suprised, I didn't end up dead
Ever since the drugs I started
Along with the money I continued stealing
Ever since I went to school high
Or ended up with a detention for being late
Ever since my ex-boyfriend intruded on my privacy
When I told him I didn't want him to do anything to me
Ever since I ran away from home
The touching-feeling thing hadn't stopped
Fourteen years old and living wherever I ended up
Went back home
Mom kicked me out
And listed me as a runaway
One week later back in the house of Hell
Started dating someone new
He ended up just like the rest
Kicked out for good
Ever since 2003
When my friend got sentenced twenty-five years
Living with a friend
Ever since I met that one guy
When I refused to let my feelings show
Ever since I started running away
Cut my hair real short
Ever since I went to court
For something I didn't do
Ever since I went back to cutting
To make it feel better
Ever since I lied to my grandparents
About whether I was smoking or not
Ever since I popped all those pills
Ended up in the hospital cause I overdosed
Ever since counseling
All the years of it
My self-estem is coming back slowly
Because I refuse to become another teenage statistic
I'll succeed; I'm going to college
The first out of my inner family
No longer shall I moan and weep
I have it better than a lot of teens my age
Those were lessons still being learned
I went through a lot in these eighteen years
I refuse to give up and
I refuse to take the easiest way out