Read Poem: UNDERSTAND ME, by by Natie Jay Tembe

I am not a usual thing; I am not the standard spirited young adult, still brimming with teenage angst and aged wisdom passed down from the withered hand that put me too sleep many years ago. I am not the oh-so-common, die-in-your-mid-twenties young adult that fought, screaming at their own reflection every day in both pain and fear… “Believe me!!! I’m trying.”

I am not either of these things, because I am both of these things.

I died 8 years ago, aged 15 when my best friend told me she was tired of how much I loved her. I died 7 years ago when my mother left my father because he was a sad shell of a man that raised us on the back of the broken principles that shattered him. I died, 4 years ago when I realised my dreams were just that.

I died yesterday when I woke…