Punctuation

I was the First

I was the first. 

The first to live in a suitcase, propped up in a broken set of homes. 

Their bellies worn thin by miles of misunderstandings lying between them. 

I was the first.

The first in my young age to understand the definition of a double agent. 

Because I was one.

I was the first.

I lived through stockpiles of standards, 

none of which matched each other. 

Hollow enough to hold the fear of oceans.

Full enough to really feel the missing pieces. 

I was always waiting.

Never expecting.

Open to changing.

Continuously debating.

Feeling everything.

Simultaneously nothing.

Never belonging.

Always losing.

Engrossed in that span of time when no one noticed,

No one heard.

No one knew.

It was hard, that much I'll admit.

To be 10,

To be the constant,

To be the one she depended on...

When constant was exactly everything that I couldn't be.

When everything I was, turned out to be everything I wouldn't be tomorrow.

When the face I saw in the mirror was two pieces of patchwork completely unalike in every way,

sewn together in attempt to look unified.

In attempt to throw the rest of the world off. 

It's no secret that I never did.

I was the first. 

The first to live in and out of a suitcase, 

thrown to the side, 

left open on the floor of an ever-changing office space.

I was the first. 

The first to understand what it's like to never feel like you belong.

Because I was never around long enough to fit in. 

To get the inside jokes--to take a part in the making of them.

To know the faucet on the side of the house stopped working on Friday.

I was the first.

Many people followed,

almost no one is left to be last.

But I was the first.

I learned life through broken mirrors and tiptoeing over creaking floorboards. 

I learned life through never getting to know it before it changed forever.