Four Teens √

MARA

The night sky is filled with countless stars - stars that resemble freckles - across the horizon. The dusty wind blows, passing through the crack in my window, swishing the curtain and entering my cold, bare room as if the weather is mocking my bitter life.

I was born into bitterness and I have known bitterness almost all my life.

In a country like Nigeria where the hustle to survive is real, I strive to be sweet, but it's hard to be. It's hard every single moment.

I'm an old soul in the body of a fourteen year old girl. A girl who has seen the world through a dark lens for as long as she has been alive.

There was a time that I wished I was never born. Why wouldn't I wish such a thing? My parents had not loved me enough to keep me. They had dumped me on my aunt's doorstep on a cold night with nothing else but a tattered blanket and a note that said, 'Mara' - my name - when I was only a month old. It could have been Dad, or Mom, my aunt has never told me which. We avoid the topic like one avoids a dangerous, untrod path.

It's the New year's eve and instead of celebrating it, I'm scrubbing the floor of my bedroom. Working helps, it serves as a means for me to transfer my anger on something.

In the slushy water, I see their faces - my parents faces. The ones I have created in my head. I see them hissing and my treacherous mind imagines their twisted faces looking at me and cursing the day I was born. I've never wanted to meet them. Then again, I have. Even if it's just to tell them how much I hate them, to hit them and shout at them. But it is better for me to imagine them as monsters than to see them as real human beings.

A stranger once asked me on a sunny day. One of those days where I stopped to buy sweets on my way back from school. She had smiled at me, asking me what my New year resolution was. I had replied her without missing a beat, "I just want genuine love, not money. Real love. Just a little sweetness to my never ending bitterness." And she had looked at me strangely, because what normal girl would reply with such level of deepness? Maybe she had expected to hear that I wanted a new dress. Too bad. Dresses are not my thing.

My aunt and her husband love me, but it's never enough. I'm not their child. When they eventually get a child, I'll be forgotten and left in the shadows to fade away. It won't be shocking though. I won't mind too because my mind has lived in a constant state of sorrow for far too long. What's a little more going to do?

Sighing, I look up to the sky through the little opening of my sky blue curtain. I look up to God as the early hours of the morning comes. It's a New Year and I should be glad I have the opportunity to see it. But I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness.

So I whisper a short prayer with my eyes closed and hands clasped.

"Dear Lord, please grant all my heart desires this New Year." It's simple and short, but it'll do just fine.

A tear slips down my cheek. I brush it away and keep on cleaning. My aunt and her husband will be home soon and I don't want them to see me break down - they are always so nice to me.

"Happy New Year to me," I whisper drily as I finally settle in to sleep, as the clock strikes One.

Dear New Year, Please be good.