Disclaimer: I don't own newsies or anything for that matter. Sue me and you get nothing but a bitter waste of time
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You know nothing, simple as that. Write what you will, you understand nothing about our world, our lives. I can tell you how empty I am, how lost I am, and all it would be is mere words to you. Write it down, read it repeatedly, and you will think of yourself as brilliant. The truth is, depth is lost on you. You are simply repeating what you have read, what you have researched. It has nothing to do with feelings, but statistics.
My mother died giving birth to her first child. Go ahead, write it. Why not? It means nothing to you and would provide great dramatic affect for your brilliant novel. You could never understand the brutal truth of knowing what happened to her. I could never comprehend having a mother's touch when the night is cold and the world is cruel. How can I describe to you the emptiness. Every boy needs his mother, right? So much for that. The sick thing is, though I don't know her, I miss her terribly. I wish I knew what she looked like, the way she felt, or even how she smelled, for Christ's sake. Every child knows these things about their mother but me. Well, not every child, but it never ceases to feel that way.
Waiting for me to tell you my father beat me, and how much of a drunk he was? Well, you'll have to keep pining, my dear, seeing as he was the kindest man put on this earth. Despite all of the pain he dealt with, all the emptiness I'm sure he undoubtedly felt, he never hesitated in saying a kind word or offering a comforting gesture. Did he remarry? No. Even if he had the heart to fall in love a second time he would have lacked the strength to go through with it. There weren't any great medical breakthroughs in my time. At least, not for the rats. For us it was more of sitting and waiting for the inevitable. At least there was no false hope, no charade pretending they would get better. It was more preparing for the end to come. You can never prepare enough though. He's been gone for years and I would give the world for one more kind word or comforting gesture.
No, the orphanages never took me away. It wasn't an Oliver Twist story, dear, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Even if they had, it would have been better than you think. What? Orphanages not completely brutal? What a revelation! The truth is that children clambered to get in them half the time. You were fed, taken care of, and given plenty of sympathy to last you into your adolescent years. No, its more the foster homes and the halfway houses you had to worry about. Run by people who weren't children of God but more desperate for money, they never cared about the children residing within. They were numbers, mouths to feed, nothing more.
I sold papers to make ends meet. That sounds so strange to say. Make ends meet at the age of eleven. But, there were children younger than me who had more pain in their lives, and though I was desperately depressed, I had to put on the face that I was lucky for what I had. The truth is, you can't be lucky for your state when there isn't anything to be thankful for. So fuck the kid with the parents who beat him when he was three. I can't be thankful that my life wasn't like that. I can pity him from time to time, but then he never lost anyone he loved, did he?
Did you get all that, love? Should I explain the starvation and the illness to you? How about the exhaustion and the mental anguish? No. Good. Not like you'll care much for it. Its all very dismal and would tend to bring your lovely readers down, wouldn't it? One bad review would kill you, wouldn't it? Well, since when did people start listening to what others said? I was raising in knowing that no one is right but yourself. I guess that's why I'm alone in my views half the time. Yes, dear, alone. A concept you couldn't grasp if you tried. But write it. Let your precious readers try to understand the concept of being on your own, both physically and mentally, for God knows how long. Try, I dare you.
I'm exhausted, writer. Is it possible we could finish this at another time? Trying to let you know what it takes out of you, what this world does to you, is impossible. So, the effort of doing so has drained me, I'm afraid. Put a pretty face on what I've told you. Make it dramatic for the world to read. Write and epic with my name written through the pages, but live with the fact that though it may be a real person in a real time, its nonetheless fiction. Just keep in the back of your head my true story, Skittery's true recollection of events. Then again, its not like it will help much. You know nothing, simple as that.