Then it begins The blank space With nothing No friend problems No family problems A place where Nobody is telling me I look bad Or do bad things A place where Comments don’t tear me down They build me up A place where Nobody tries to hurt me A place where I’m enough Where I can be upset Or happy And say curse words And not be told All the time I need to stop Being myself A place where Everyone waits for me And cares about me A place where Nobody gets hurt Or hurts me A place where Phones aren’t a thing And everyone talks to each other And where I don’t feel Terrified For once in my life And I don’t feel Like everyone hates me In the blank space I don’t hate myself I don’t hate anything And I don’t worry about people Being annoyed at me Which people always are I don’t feel like The high maintenance person Everyone tells me I am Or do I just tell myself that? When my parents fight And yell at each other I leave for a minute A calming minute Before I tell my siblings “Everything will be okay” When I know it might not be The blank space Is calming A place I go to If times are tough When I want to leave I go there instead Inside my head In the blank space