Sleeping Outside

There's no way you will ever get to sleep. The worn fabric of the moldy sofa chair you are huddled in feels like ice under you. Your jeans and sweatshirt do nothing to protect you from the wind. You want to sleep so badly! You want to go to sleep and forget that you are hiding behind an empty house up the street; having run out of your house away from your drunk mother. She never remembered what she did when she was drunk. She'd ask you who you had been fighting with again? when she saw the bruises on your face and neck. She never believed you when you swore to her that it wasn't you who was calling family services, that it was the people at school when they saw your face all fucked up. She never believed you and it would cause her to go off drinking again.
You want to forget that it would be hours until you will feel safe that she has passed out on the couch, having run out of beer. You want to sleep and dream that you are normal 13 year old girl, that you have your own room in a house that has all of it's windows. In your dreams, your house has heat and you don't have to walk to the neighbor's to use their shower in the window. In your dreams, your friends come over and spend the night, and your mother isn't drunk in the other room.
At least the foster homes were nice houses. I even had my own room in one. The last one I was in, and the best. Sandy was a great woman. I wish I hadn't lost touch with her. She treated me like a person, and it was a shame I spent such little time with her.
Sometimes people need to stop taking so many things for granted sometimes, you know? Things could be worse. I'm writing about some unawesome things that happened to me, but at the same time I know it could have been worse. My life was never in danger, except from my own hand. I survived, and I am stronger and smarter from it. Some don't even get their lives. Some are too small to defend themselves, and they fall victim to the hands of cruel individuals. (I read an article about a three year old who was killed by his foster parents when they wrapped him in a blanket, taped his mouth shut, and locked him in a closet while they went to their family reunion. Horrible thing. I have a three year old. It crushes me.)