As a kid, I never really liked shoes. I had trained myself to be able to walk on anything without the comfort of shoes. The pain was there, of course it was, but I ignored it and pushed past it.

I learned a very valuable lesson in those days. In life, you need to push past the pain and let the emotion go. Yes, it will always be there. To get hung up on the very emotion everyday...that leads to roads that are best not traveled.

Though, many times, one does go down one of those roads, a road filled with pain, misery, self-hatred, and self-destruction. At the end of the road, there is a clearing, it represents the strength, knowledge, wisdom, and self-clarity that you gain from falling into the deepest and darkest of pits and coming back out.

Even now, I am a senior in high school and a freshman in college, I am still traveling to those pits and coming back, all because I am still that curious and wandering child. I never could stop myself from that child-like curiosity. I have done things that I regret because of that curiosity.

I have put myself in situations where I have lost practically everything. I had been left with nothing, but I got up and continued. I have been through abuse (verbal and physical), I have stood tall when I wanted to fall, and I have held in pain, not wanting the world to see what has happened to me.

I'm sensitive, but I have learned the world is cruel when it comes to showing emotions.

I hide and push away the emotions, continuing on like nothing happened. Only on the inside do I actually convey how I feel. What I feel.

Emotions are a weakness that can be taken advantage of. You show a strong emotion and someone can snatch it away. Use it to their own personal gain.

You can do everything that someone asks of you, but at the end of the day...? It's never enough. It will never be enough.

One day things will look up. One day this pain will end. One day these awful emotions will leave. One day.

I have trained myself to withstand a lot of pain. I go barefoot for the pain and a distraction from my real pain. Though, there are times where I do it for the freedom of letting go, and not being contained.

I trained myself to push past the pain of life, and live. Live with no pain weighing me down. There are times I relapse, and love the feeling of bringing myself pain for the feeling of it. It's a bad addiction, but it's there.

It follows me wherever I go. Haunting me. Hating me.

I fall and I get up. I feel the pain and let go. I feel the weight and shrug it off. I become restless, so I do something.

I push and use the energy for something else. The reason I write is to let go. Everything I write has truth in it. You just have to look close enough to notice.

To pick out what is true and what is my imagination.

I love to stay and continue writing, but I have to let go. To go dancing barefooted, in the rain, wearing one of my best dresses. Why? Not because of a Taylor Swift song, but because it will always be my dream. To let go and to leave reality, to write and to truly be myself.

Dream of what could and will be. Dream of a better place than this. To fly away from this.

To escape the pain I feel, to use it for something greater. To use it better than what I use it for.

For what? I don't know. All I know is, my words are powerful. I put so much behind them, they can help save someone, or could kill someone.

Dream of the feeling of the cold rain, pouring down as I dance barefooted in a dress. I'm fearless. I'm me. And I'm the girl with no shoes.