Baby Girl:

I sit here, looking at her in my arms. She is the most beautiful thing in the world. Her hair is soft as the clouds in heaven, and curl with such elegance. Her skin is as soft as one could possibly imagine. This small thing I hold in my hand, and I wonder, why did I keep her. It has seemed so long since the incident at the party occurred. I could still smell him, and feel him, as if he laid right next to me. Yet, I think, how could something so precious come from something so cruel.

I remember that day. The last day that I lived. Everyone spoke of the party like it was the last one to ever happen. All my friends wanted to go, and of course I had to as well.

Everything was perfect!

That was until, someone spiked my punch. I woke up the next morning in that bed, with a stranger next to me, and my clothes on the floor. I had no one to turn too, and it seemed as if the world were busy and spinning , and I was the only one not going with the flow.

As I got bigger, so did rumors, and I lost my friends, and my family. I was alone at seventeen years old, with a baby, because I refused to say what happened. Then she came…that beautiful little girl, and I felt alone no more, and everything just seemed ok, once I saw her. I never bothered to go search for him. I wouldn’’t allow myself too. I had no one, and I wouldn’’t go to him…

I didn’’t need him. I struggled for months trying to support my baby girl. My attempts went from begging for chump change, to flirting with several men just to get some money for milk and diapers. I played a dangerous game, but I did it all for love, and to keep the one person I had alive.

I turned eighteen, and I decided to get a job. One of the guys I ran into who I flirted with offered me a job at a strip joint, and allowed me to stay in a room upstairs until I got it together. I danced good, but I wasn’t that good, but after awhile I picked up skills and techniques from the other girls. I made a friend with one girl precisely, who was the same age as me, and in a similar situation, but without a kid. She helped me take care of my baby girl a lot, but one day she just disappeared. I saved my money, I was set on getting my baby girl out of this place.

However, all of that changed when I ran into my mother one day. I hadn’’t spoken to her in almost two years. Her eyes met mine, and she just walked away. I paused, but I didn’’t look back. That part of my life was over, and I wouldn’’t allow my past to interfere with my future.

Another year passed, and I had enough money to establish a decent life for me and my baby girl. The night I decided that this would be my last day as a stripper, one of the regulars at the club, tried to make a pass at me. Though he didn’’t succeed in his attempt, I felt as if he did. I was that seventeen year old girl again. That night, when I left, I called my mother, and when she answered I said only one word: Bye. And hung up.

Riding on the Amtrak, I looked at my baby girl. She slept in the chair next to me. She was exactly like I remembered her being when I first laid eyes on her. I promised myself then that nothing would ever happen to her as long as I lived. And I would never abandon her. Heading into the tunnel, I felt liberation once again.