By Alex Bonardi, TIWP Student

“You have something to say. Your soul has a story to tell.” —Melodie Ramone

You want to apologize. You want to bring back those seventeen lives. You want a chance to explain. But you don’t get to. No one will listen. No one would care. No one will ever see you the same. But they don’t know you. They don’t hear the voices in your head. They don’t feel the pain of the bully’s words. They don’t feel the tears on your cheeks from missing your mother. And now, they don’t feel the hole in your heart. They don’t feel your self-hatred, every time they look at themselves in the mirror. All they see is a boy who cannot keep his head up in the courtroom, a boy covered in orange and evil. They will never know the real you. You were once a goalie on your soccer team. You went to the water park with your friends and turned into a tomato in the sun. You once went to school and played with other kids at recess. Then you went to school and took seventeen lives and that’s all they know. But you have a story to tell.