Friends: What a funny word. It’s a label for a group of people, that I do nothing with but drink and smoke my sorrows away. Yet, they also cause my sorrows. So in the midst of my confusion, who shall I call a friend? My pen and my book? Or the paintbrush which paints the colors I never get to feel; because my senses are too clogged by the tobacco and nicotine of this morning. In the moments in which I isolate myself, try to move on and find a new path, my heart shatters. I yearn for a simple hello, maybe if I luck out an “I miss you.” Yet, I don’t receive it. Ever. Five months now. It’s been five.stupid.months. I haven’t heard from them yet. Ha. Too much pot, best friend? Can’t seem to remember the person who dragged you home at 3 in the morning, huh? Can’t seem to remember me, the girl who carried your limp body all the way home… all 150 pounds on my small shoulders. That’s a lot of weight to be carried on the shoulders of a 14 year-old. Didn’t think of that, did you? Didn’t care how old I was when you tried kissing me. Now I’m going too far. It’s not about the friends. It’s not about THE “best-friend”. It’s not about even my first love. Their all drug addicts with a happy lifestyle, a lifestyle that I will not be a victim of! I will NOT steal, and lie, and beg for money to get a few hours of thrill. I will not wake up every morning feeling like a pile of dung- pouring cups of black coffee down my dry throat to try to understand what day it is. I will not show my mother the fake smiles of marijuana and tell her that everything is okay, because it is NOT. I am sick. I am tired. I want to go to school and I want to learn and I want to mature into the fine, young lady that so many have come to believe I am. And I promise you, I swear to the non-existent G-d that I believe in, that I will do my best and try my hardest to overcome this stupid addiction that I had forced upon myself. This stupid addiction of the want, the need to have a human connection because I will NEVER have the connection I want if I keep wasting my time, my effort, my emotional capacity on stupid, immature, low-life drug addicts such as yourselves. You were once my friends. You were once my family: the family that I tried so hard to have while my mother spent day after day working to try to make a little extra money to support her child. But from today on I promise you, my friends, that the next time you see my name will be in lights. The next time you think about me is when you’re watching your television blankly, and my name comes up. Because I promise you, my friends, I will make something of myself and I WILL make it out. Maybe not today, but definitely tomorrow.