Life goes on, I guess that’s just the way it goes. There are times that I wish this wasn’t the case. I wish that the whole world would stop on its axis, the sun would freeze and I could just blow away into a pile of ashes, scattering myself across the universe. The day my dad died was the day that part of my heart left. He had always been my rock, my solid ground. He was the one I could always count on to be there and keep me from loosing myself in the tide. When he was gone, the string of the balloon that was my life was severed, and I float away. Everyday I would come home from school, I would walk in the door and he would walk out of the kitchen arms open, “Come give your old man a hug!” Every day. Now I walk into my house and instead of the warm welcoming feeling of an inhabited home, brimming with love and memories, I would walk into a prison. The picket fence was an iron gate, holding all the ghosts in, the row of trees leading up to the stoop are guards, standing sentry, waiting, just waiting, for me to try to make my escape. When I walk into the house the ceiling seemed to shrink. The house, the jail, was falling down on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs. The white washed prison walls were cold; they were like cement to the touch. The endless expanses of white swallowed all the family photos that used to hang there. Mom pretends that nothing is different. She bustles around, cooking food and making shopping lists. She spends hours sweeping the floors, as if she is trying to sweep all of the sadness and cold right out of the house. How could she do it? How could she pretend like nothing is wrong? Everything is wrong. But life goes on. My only escape is school, devoting myself to studying and spending hours alone in the library keeps my mind busy. I find that if my mind is constantly occupied I can put all my stormy thoughts into the corner of my mind. No one has to see what’s wrong. If I keep a straight face, straight A’s, no one will guess. I laugh and smile at everything, sometimes I think that if I put on a show what’s on the outside might be able to crawl into the inside and make me happy. They say only time will heal, so now, after it all, I watch the clock and wait.