Maryam Abdullah

Unruined Dreams

Sometimes I have to try very hard to think back to what life was like before I was placed with my foster family. I mostly blocked out allot of the unnecessary trauma. I spent most days and nights alone. My mom left me and my dad when I was just a toddler. I don’t remember her at all. I have one picture of her and me. Her smiling at my dad who was the photographer and me looking at the grass with my thumb in my mouth. The picture was taken outside of a trailer we lived in. I never thought twice about not having a mother when I was growing up. On some Days dad was enough, and on other days he was nonexistent. It was just he and I in that little trailer so when he wasn’t there it was me myself and I. Sometimes I would go days at a time without speaking to anyone. I made up the most elaborate stories and fantasized about being one of the characters.