Flash flash flash photography. I am the one teenagers look up to and the one who parents look down on. I sleep and live part time in a tiny bus with myself and 4 smelly boys. My clothes are torn and frayed; the holes in my jeans don’t do a good job of hiding my bruised and cut knees from sliding across the stage. My jeans are only kept up with a worn out falling apart white studded belt, I’ve got the new fashion diet all figured out, go on tour and only eat one meal a day (which is whatever you buy from Quickmart). My dark roots are starting to give away the fact that my natural hair color is not cotton candy pink. I apply my make up in the tiny bathroom mirror with four boys (who are more girly than me) standing over my shoulder fixing their hair. We walk on stage and the lights go up, it’s do or die (and it’s not my time to go). The music takes over, I don’t even know what is going on around me or care how much a fool I look jumping around and sliding on the floor. The crowd’s energy only rivals our own (the chemistry in this place could destroy it). The show ends with a final riff and the lights go out. We walk off the stage and out the back doors where people are standing; all these people want to meet me and be me, but they have nothing on me. I’m confident and a little cocky, but I am not arrogant. I love meeting the people who make this my job, without them I would still be bussing tables and asking “Would you like fries with that sir?” I walk with a slight limp from twisting my ankle in a landing of a jump off the amplifier and a gash in my leg from cutting it on a sharp part of the column on the side of the stage when I climbed it (another scar, another story). My mother can only wish that this is not what I do for a living, but I’m living the dream and no one can stop me.