I have lyitis (Lie-i-tis), I always tell my teachers that but they never believe me. It’s true, I can’t stop what escapes from my mouth. I have sickness that makes it only possible for me to tell lies or be sarcastic. Like today my silly classmate asked did you know that water is H2O? What kind of question is that! “O my gosh are you serious, call the police we have just made a new discovery” I screamed in his face.

Later on I was sitting around minding my own business and another one of my silly classmates said did you know carrots are a vegetables. Shocker. These kids know nothing but that’s ok it means more fun for me. “Are you sure? I swear I thought they were fruits that grew in the ground.” Then the kid had the nerve to say carrots grow in the ground. (face palm and sighs) “No, no they don’t I just made it up on the spot.” I sneered. It just so happens my teacher was walking by while I was talking to the kid. She heard what I said and told me to stop it, then asked for my homework. I told her I didn’t have the homework, that it was really my pet donkey’s fault. He was hungry and needed a snack so I offered him my homework. I don’t even know why I said that, I knew she wasn’t going to believe it, I don’t even have a donkey. But it was impossible for me to stop the lie from coming out of my mouth. I wasn’t really trying either so maybe I didn’t want to stop. I really should stop though because when I ask a silly question then one of the kids will say something like I say to them. Or my mom will make up a lie like I do. Then I’ll be embarrassed, but it’s just too much fun to stop. Hehe

My teacher screams my name, by the look on her face she’s sick of my story. VIOLET that is enough. B-bbb-But it wasn’t me it was my imaginary friend Becky who told me to make up the story. (Talks to air) RIght Becky, right. She starts screaming again. I mean why is yelling. Who does she think she is...my teacher. (Looks up) Oh yeah she is. Th... principal offi… what is this lady saying. I tilt my head to the side, like seeing her in a different view  will help me understand what she is saying. Blah Blah Blah when will she ever stop talking. Now she’s pointing, is her face getting redder. O my gosh she looks like a baboon butt. (Chuckles) Haha. I think she thinks I’m laughing at her, she keeps asking are you laughing at me. Through my laughing I say “Of course, I’m not laughing with you.” GO TO THE PRINCIPAL OFFICE. Gosh why did she have to scream it. I mean I’ve done nothing wrong. NOW she say through gritted teeth. I’m leaving gosh.

(Walks in the office) Yes Principal Dunn it’s me again. It wasn’t my fault I promise. It was a tiger unicon that came in the room and started eating the students and I said it was a new discovery and the teacher got mad. She then started asking for my homework, and I told her the same thing that always happens with my homework. My fish ate it.  And I tried to fight him off but he was too strong. (Makes a fish face) He was like Bloop Bloop and I was like no no Mr. Bloop  I need that. But he didn’t sto- How rude! She interrupted my story. Every time I’m in here she asks the same thing. Why can’t you tell the truth, it won’t get you in trouble? But that’s not the truth why she lying to me, the truth will get me in trouble.

I mean if adults can do it why can’t I. But if I went up to her and said I didn’t do my homework she would give me that disappointed look. That feels even worse than lying and I get extremely bored so I come up with stories to make things more interesting. Spice up my life. After telling me I won’t get in trouble she asked what the truth was. I told I have sickness that makes it only possible for me to tell lies it’s called lyitis. She put her head down on the desk with a loud thump. What can I say, my stories are more fun. I never want to stop telling them EVER!

(sigh)

(moping around) Another day here. My so called “home.” A home that’s so small, I barely have room to roam. A home with water so shallow, it doesn’t take long to swim to the bottom. A home surrounded by glass, glass that holds me back, too strong to even break, believe me, I’ve tried several times.

I’ve been here for so long, I barely even remember my old home. I remember the water, cooling me off during a hot day. I remember the air, clear and refreshing. (voice gets higher and angrier) I remember being able to look and see the endless amount of trees and space to travel. I remember eating whatever I want, yeah it was hard to find, but I remember the adventure, my friends, family.

(a little pause, sit down)

(voice gets low and sad) I remember my mom. The tallest, most beautiful hippo in the tribe. I remember riding on her back in the water, happy and joyful, feeling the slight wind against my little face and ears. Playing with my friends while I wait for her to get our food. Feeling blissful and safe, lying against her at night, staring at the big beautiful moon in the sky, excited for the next day. (slight smile)

“If there ever comes a time we’re seperated, look at that moon, every night. I’ll be looking at it too.” She told me.

(frown) And I remember that night, the last night I saw her, the night they took me away. The moon shone so bright. I was sleeping, peacefully, next to her. I was still so young, so small, I depended on her for everything. I heard her wake up, angrily grunting, and the boom, everything went black. Then I woke up here.

(angry tone) (stand up) The humans. They did it. They’re the reason I’m here. They point at me, laugh at me, make fun of me, (mocking) “Oh my god mommy look how big and fat that hippo is!” all through that glass. They’re reason I no longer see my mom, my friends, my family. The reason I have no joy.

Seeing how long I’ve been here, I’ll never get back to my old life. I’ll never see my mom again. I’ll never be happy again.

(human comes in with food, starts cleaning) Oh here comes the daily human. Hey, you again. Let me out of here. Seriously, why do you always ignore me? I wanna go home. Please.

Humans always ignore me. I guess it wasn’t enough that they brought me here, now they have to ignore me.

I guess I’ll just eat.

(starts eating) This is the only good part of being here.

(Other hippo comes over and starts eating) But I hate having to share.

(Yelling at hippo) Hey! You just took the biggest piece of lettuce! Seriously?! (hippo runs away)

(some time passes)

(running)(stops)(looks around)(sits)

So what? They can look for me all they want. I will just sit on this rock.

(looks around nervously)

It’s not like they really care. Plus, they would never suspect… I …

(yells)

that I always hated the feeling!

(quieter and sadder)

This feeling of loneliness, misunderstanding and fear.   

(Looks at a notebook and pen in her hands)

And these stupid things! They only made me feel worse!

(Throws the thing as far as she can)

I mean, whose idea was to make me put words on a piece of paper? And when my pen ran out of ink, I lost my voice.

(pauses)

What was all that for. If I didn’t waste my time, by writing every word I wanted to say on paper, then I would have found a way to make them hear every word that I say out of my mouth. But because I choose to write instead of speak, I feel too different. People think that I am weird, and they never seen what its like, they will never understand. That is why I ran. Out of the city. Out of their lives. And I choose to be an independent person. Find my own way.

(pauses)(lightly laughs)    

Look at me now. Trying to justify my decisions, to myself. I should just stay here. I mean-

(slowly looks around)

-it’s beautiful.

(pauses)

Yea. I wish, that I could stay here forever. Leaving the whole world behind. But that is what everyone wishes for. To have happiness with no great problems and consequences.  I can’t be granted this wish, because that is impossible, unless everyone gets it, and yet that is not possible either. Now I feel ashamed for wishing it.   

(sighs)

Only thing I know is, I can never go back. There was definitely something wrong with me. I spoke to them, but they never heard. Why I am getting obsessed now?!? I am not crazy.

(stands up and starts walking around, every second she walks faster and faster)

I know the difference between the voice in my head and out my mouth. But they… they … they think I’m crazy, they insult me, they make fun of me. They, my-

(makes quotation marks with her fingers)

-“friends” and  “family”.  Yesterday my “best friend” , Lizzy, had to comment (mocking voice) “Hope, don’t your hands get tired of using of that notebook. I mean once I sang in choir too much and lost my voice, but I could not stand writing all my thoughts down for more than 2 hours.”

(stops and sits again)(sighs)

It’s my fault, when I realized that they stopped hearing me, I could have did something to fix it. But what? I speak every day in front of the mirror. I see my lips moving. I feel my throat vibrating and moving. Then a tear drops, then another followed, and by the time I realize that it’s killing me not to be able to be heard, I’ve already decided not to pity myself.

(puts her face in her palms)  

If I can’t get used to myself. How are others supposed to? I have to accept it. I have to become braver. Wait...

(looks up)

And you know what? I am unique. If they have a problem with it, it’s their problem, not mine.  

(her bracelet falls off, she kneels down and picks it up)

What happened? Why did my bracelet fall of. This bracelet is bad news anyway. I mean the girl that gave it to me disappeared. And sometime after that people stopped hearing me. Oh well, It can’t be helped.

(throws the bracelet, looks to the side and sees a person)

“Hi. Uh, why am I even speaking to you. I mean you can’t hear me anyway.”

(pauses and listens)

“Wait”

(pauses and listens)

“Waht!?!? But how?!?”

(pauses and listens)

“You can actually hear me?!?”    

(stands up and starts running towards the way she entered)

We just got off the Broad Street Line and now walking to his house. We were excited about to going to the pool hall later. We planned this for a few days now and the anticipation built. It was just a pool hall, but it was going to be fun.

We got to his steps and walked into his house. We got settled and put our stuff down and had a light snack before we were about to go out.  

“You ready to lose?” I asked him sounding confident with a smirk on my face.

He gave me a look knowing that he wasn’t going to lose. I was rushing him for us to leave soon because he was taking forever, I guess he wasn’t as excited I was to go. I just hung on and tried to wait as patient as can be.

I walked over to his bathroom and right after I closed the door shut I heard a vibration in my pocket. It was from my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket expecting just a casual notification like a measly snapchat or something, but it wasn’t, it was from my mom. Usually when I get a text message from it has to do with complaining or something about a holiday, thats not what this text was about this time.

I read off my lock screen and it said “I need you to come home right now, there is something I need to tell you.” That scared me, when someone says “we need to talk” it’s serious. I responded back right away.

“Sorry, I cant. Im about to go play pool.”

More texts went back and forth between us, she kept saying please come home, I don’t need you to but it would be very helpful and I said “I will be home soon.”

I put my phone back into my pocket and it vibrated in the vibration mode when you’re getting a phone call. I pulled it out of my pocket and I read what it said off the screen. MOM. I answered the phone right away, she was crying.

“De-De-Declan…”

I can tell she’s been crying for a while.

“Mom, whats wrong?!?!” I responded immediately because I knew something was wrong.

“Something happened” She cried some more and bursted into tears.

“Mom, please tell me. I’m worried.” I was starting to get really scared.

“Its Bebop” My heart sunk. This was the man that helped my parents raise me, the one that was best friends with my mom for 30 plus years now, always there for her and all of us. He moved out of Philadelphia which was devistating and he finally found a good job and I was so proud. She continued talking.

“Well, it started off as being sick and he passed out yesterday. The results came back, he has a brain tumour.” I lost all sense of everything. I only heard a buzz in my ear and I stared off into blank space.  I didn’t know what just happened, my phone fell through my hand and I hit the floor. I started crying as my friend had no idea what just happened. I told him right away and left his house. I ran right home.

Here we go again.

Yet another day of scorching sun rays beaming down off my chipped paint.  Burning whoever gets stuck with me in the middle of the day. Glitter faded, spokes rolling along the beaten and bruised boardwalk. But I am beaten and bruised. No one cares, no one sees what I go through.

Do you know how many times I have had ice cream drip, drip, drip and DRIP onto me.  It is unimaginable the amount of times the shop owner, Greg, had to scrap off the funnel cake powder stuck to my handlebars.

An endless cycle of being dragged out of the shop day in and day out. Wiped clean of the dust and grime left over from yesterday’s customers. No amount of polish or wax can shine over my dents and scratches; battle scars still indented in my spokes and frame, seat torn from endless butts chafing against the pleather exterior of my seat.

They just ride, and ride, and ride, until there is nothing left. Only then do people care, when you are wearing down; when you can’t do what they expected of you or wanted you to do.

It was not always so bad. I was once shiny, new, inviting. I was always the first one picked, and I would have so many customers each day. Some would ask to buy me; some would keep me from sun up to sun down. I was the most rented in the county for two years running, even though that does not really matter anymore.  

I remember the day it all went wrong.

It was a perfect day on August 31, 2012. I had not been rented in awhile so Greg took me out of the shack extra early to give me a bright polish; I was feeling damn good. But I just sat out in the sun all day, waiting and waiting (beat) and waiting!

It was close to sunset when a seemingly nice teenage kid rented me. I was all ready to go. He was not peddling too hard, or screeching the breaks, or spilling drinks all over me. But, then he took a sharp left turn, and before I realized what was happening we were in a back alley with kids spraying graffiti and smoking pot. It’s not like I could scream out for help; I am a bike for God’s sake.

Next thing I know we are at a convenience store, and the kid basically throws me to the ground and jumps off in one quick motion, then him and his friends go in. There is shouting and cussing.

The kids all come running out, masks over their heads with money and food in their hands. The kid who rented me tripped over my front tire, his head hitting the pavement with a crack, and he just layed there. His friends kept running.

The police officers revved in a few moments later, with an ambulance right behind him. The store owner, despite getting robbed, helped my renter and tried to stop the blood. And since I was evidence, I got stuck sitting in an old musty police garage for two weeks, before Greg came and picked me up.

I got pretty bruised from those kids riding me, and the officers weren’t exactly gentle. Greg still got me none the less; took me back to the shack and tried to do his best to fix me up enough to be displayed. Everyone still knew that I was “that bike.” It was not my fault though; I got roughed up that day, too. But no cared. No one cried for me.

Now everyday it’s the same story. There is some overweight dad or super hyper-active soccer mom peddling me extremely hard up and down the boardwalk for hours. Screeching my brakes. . .repeatedly! So many years of these dreaded days filled salt water breezes and the endless splats of seagull shit.

That’s always people’s problems. They use each other without realizing the damage they do each and every time. Just chipping, chipping and chipping pieces of me until I am rubbed raw to the frame, to the core of the metal rods that hold me together somehow.

But I am just a boardwalk bike, what do I know?

I sleep 20 hours a day on weekdays. On weekends, I sleep anywhere from 10 to 18 hours a day. But I always can tell what you're doing. Do you always feel like somebody's watching you? Because I am, I’m watching you Ethan, (Heavy breathing, sounds like XHXHHHX) and listening, listening to what you’re doing But are you listening to me? Ha! course not- (rythmic) you just let my beat go on and on without any thought, ya don’t even know, how high the volume is on your stereo. You let it all go (pause)... to hell... yo... I know I’m not the only one. Just a few days ago I heard you complaining about the cell phone. You and that cell phone have done everything together and after 2 years you’re just gonna replace it for the next upgrade! I heard you saying… I heard you saying that (breaths deeply XXHHHXH) your planned on breaking the phone so that your mom would get you the gen 8. I (starts crying) I-I don’t even k-know (breaths deeply XHXHXHXHHH) what’s so great li-iike. It’s like (XHXHXHHX) what’s so great about having a thinner screen… You used to say live and let live. Ya know ya did,  ya know ya did,  ya know ya did. (Sniffle). 

Ok, um now back to the subject at hand. My speaker: why it’s broken, what you can do to fix it and what you can do to make sure this does not happen again. The reason why speaker my speaker is bust, is because of that dubstep. Please stop listening to the dubstep, it makes me vibrate so much I think I’ll explode. Please turn down the volume and listen to quieter music so I don’t explode, or worse. Now, in order to fix me you need to take out the broken driver and then place a new one in. It’ll only cost $20… maybe. You could always buy one of the internet from the computer. Hey, there’s another example of something good gone to waste. Remember your old computer? You used to spend hours on that thing, but then one day you put it in box, tossed it out and got that fancy computer. Anyway, buying an entire new stereo would be around… uh, eight thousand dollars! So just buy a driver for me that’s all you need oh and stop mistreating me and your other- Hey uh Ethan, what are you doing with that remote? Ethan (stern) listen to me don’t turn me on. Ethan, (worried) Ethan wait! Ethan- (screaming) CALL 911 NOW BWAWAH REEEEEEEEEAHHHHHH dududu REEEEEEAAHHH dududu WOOOOOooooowXXXHXHHHHXHHXHXHHXHXH. (pause) XHXHHXHTHIS GIRL IS ON FFFIYYYYAAAAAAHHHXXHXXHXHHXHXHX.

I constantly code switched all the time without even realising. I remember when I was younger having to move all around the country and even outside of it. I also remember throughout all of this my voice changing. It would change from being a VERY strong southern accent to a very moletone casual accent. The part that was exceedingly bad about it was the amount of judgment I received in the process. Everywhere I went they said I had an accent because by the time I truly got used to a certain voice I had to move. It’s amazing how much people’s opinions change of you solely because of the way your voice sounds. Your voice is a tricky thing and can make or break your relationships if the other person isn't very fond of it.

    I remember from the very early stages of my life having a very southern accent. I never truly noticed my voice changing until I moved so while I was in South Carolina (my birthplace) I never noticed anything wrong or different with my voice. Since it was normal for everyone else it became normal for me. Along with the voices I heard there, the culture was very different as well. People down south generally group themselves around their families and the families down south are HUGE. Everyone just seems a lot more connected. Also people down south seem to keep themselves busy a lot more often, they never seem to have nothing to do. They also eat a lot more seafood such as: Crabs, shrimp, and clams. Another thing I found that they cared about more was going outside. They always made sure you had enough time outside each day and made sure you didn't come in.

  The next place I remember moving to was Barbados in the Caribbean. They also like A LOT of seafood, I actually kinda believe they like it more. They also like to have a lot of outside time. They are even very connected with one another however not as strongly as they are in the south. However everything is way more fast paced including the speech. The speech there is very hard to comprehend if you have recently come from the U.S. The language there is very slanged and doesn't even seem like English half the time due to it’s very strong accent although I don’t particularly think the people who live and have grown up there believe so. Plus everything comes out with such speed and aggression that sometimes it can be intimidating. I always thought to myself if there is any accent I would least like to be yelled at it is definitely without a doubt a Barbadian one. It just sounds so fierce and aggressive when they are just trying to be gentle. Then when the first time I got yelled at came I didn't know what do because not only was it scary I couldn't even understand. Barbadian voices completely change whenever they have any kind of strong emotion. You can always tell how one another feels just by the way you sound.

 The next place I remember vividly was when I moved to Washington (State). Washington was a very slow paced take it easy laid back sort of State with a voice to match along with it. Everyone there talked so sslllooowww and melancholy I began losing my mind it felt like. I believe that this was one of the hardest transitions for me primarily due to the fact that no one understood me. To them it was like I was speaking Latin, if you asked them what language I was speaking they probably wouldn't be able to tell you. It was so fast and aggressive to them with a few words only used in Barbados. For a few months I was unable to communicate with most people I encountered wilts I was there. When my voice changed I hadn't even realized it I guess it was just a psychological thing because whenever I ask my Mom about it, it was kinda what I expected to happen. My voice slowed down to be on par with everyone else's however I still said a lot of Bajan words. I also still had the accent but, it was like the perfect mixture of the two.

   A couple months after my brother was born there my family moved to Virginia. Nothing really happened here however their speech was a bit quicker and they said my voice sounded funny. However the real memories were from when I moved to New york. It only took a couple of weeks for my voice to adjust back to being faced paced and I immediately gained friends. It was as if my voice made people dislike me prior to it changing. Although I had gotten used to the speech in New York I remember then having to move to Philadelphia. Philadelphia wasn't too much of a change because speech here hardly differed from New York so it was extremely easy for me to adapt to my new environment and make many friends rapidly. So after thinking back to all of this now as a teen and realising how much peoples views/opinions on me changed along with my voice. My voice now changes extremely fast according to whoever I’m speaking with. Code-switching happens all the time sometimes without us ever even noticing but, it can change your whole relationship with somebody from the very first word you speak out of your mouth.

White Boy

Average, bland, plain, boring, and proper english fell out of my mouth every time I talked. It grew into me dashing in a little slang, threw in some philly made words and then add the dominate bland english, congratulations! You have made my voice. My communication tool. I was the white boy, “The inside-out oreo”. I enjoyed it. My friend Vaughn told me “You got the perfect flow of urban and ya whiteness.”

My voice and dialect has changed a tremendous amount for each interaction I have with different people. The interactions are teachers and I, parents and I, family and I, and friends and I. Some interactions with the way I talk has grown more than others like friends and I and parents and I are the two biggest ones that have expanded and grown. A good example of me saying to a friend when I saw him when I was little.

“Hey!” to

“Whats good bro?”

Then the conversation would go something like,

“Want to ask your parents to have a play date after school?”,

and then now it would be

“You wanna chill after school and grub, man?”  

Then my conversations with parents started off as,

“Daddy (or mommy) what’s for dinner?”

and now it would be like

“Yo, what ya gonnna make tonight?”

The transition of our language is just natural, we all do it. We will not live our whole entire life speaking like we are 5 years old but the step into talking like a young adult may be different for all of us. Some people may stick with the complete proper english and talk like that. Some others like me, may make the transition into adding some slang and talking a little more “urban”.

I feel as if the case for me were the multiple transitions of my surroundings. When I was 7 years old I moved from Society Hill where everyone speaks with proper english to West Philadelphia where it starts to get more african american populated. The other big transition in my life was leaving a private school (The Philadelphia School) where everyone responded to proper english. From there I changed schools to a public school (Meredith) where the language completely changed.

There were a lot of things I learned from that school like that South Philly kids talk weird. Water was now “wooder”. I learned what “jawn” meant. “Ratchet” was now a word. Sauce and Gravy had two completely different meanings and “Crayons” was now “Crowns”.

Even the non South Philly kids also had a special way that they talked. “Yo” and “bro” were thrown into every single sentence. We did not eat anymore, we “grubbed”. Wearing nice basketball shoes was now cool and the recess sport was now kickball and not soccer.

At The Philadelphia School, it was only proper english. You never heard “Black English” in the school. It’s not like it was prohibited it was just the amount of african american students in my grade. There were two out of the 36 of us. Then, at Meredith you even heard “Black English” come out of some teachers mouths.  Out of the 62 of us it was probably about around 60% african american and then 30% white. That is when it really started developing into my voice today. It was after the move but when I came to that school it picked up intensely.

I started there in sixth grade and that is the point where we turn into teenagers. It was a really big change for me and I had no clue what to expect from the school. That is when I was “The white boy.” The jokes were all in good fun so that was not a bad thing. As the year went on the way I talked was changing a little bit. I started using some of the slang words, hey turned into yo. He wasn’t my friend, he was my bro. We weren’t a group of friends hanging out, we were homies chilling.

From noticing what everyone has said to me about the way I talk, even things I do notice, I know that I am distinct. I am my self. I enjoy very much being who I am. I come from a proper english Jewish family, and I come from a proper english German family. I am different and it is amazing to know that. Philadelphia itself has made a huge impact on my life. This great, diverse city.

In James Baldwin’s essay; If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? I have found a quote that ultimately describes why my language has changed and how it has changed. “People evolve a language in order to describe, and thus control their circumstances.” What this quote is saying that a language is evolved based on their circumstances meaning what is going on in their lives. My circumstances were living in a heavily white populated neighborhood and then moving to a greatly diverse neighborhood, those were my circumstances thus my language evolved.