A simple charismatic smile roots much deeper than the naked eye can see, for my body is a temple, an ancient Strangler Fig tree with vines that thirst into every direction and tell a story of their own as they dwell deep inside of my entity. Just as the majestic and powerful tree, I have tasted the blood, sweat and tears as I fought to survive in an environment filled with negligence and animosity. I flourished in a dysfunctional family of three: my young hard working father, an alcoholic mother, and myself. Though I was small and understood very little for I was only a toddler, I knew that having a mother that slowly drank her life away faster than a blazing fire can spread on a scorching hot summer eve, was not a good sign for my unnourished body, mind and soul. It was then I knew that I was in need of an angel - a savior. Someone who would show me the way to survive in this mysterious and gothic world that resembles the darkness of a thick, thriving, jungle forest that is filled with danger, passion and inevitable pain.

There were exactly six rings inside of the roughly uneven damaged bark when I first encountered my grandmother, who was a mystical creature to me. Her eyes, they shone brightly just as the northern star in the darkened sky, her lips were a gently peach accompanied by patches of lightly salmon-pink glow around the eyes and nose. The jagged wrinkles give definition to her face, for they are her battle scars. It was she that would take on the role of being my rescuer. Her name still kindly resounds in my mind in a thousand whispers as it rolls off of my miniature lips, "Rimma." Rimma is the name I have grown to know as mother; a woman who creates and provides maternal love and tenderness for a young and lost soul that had once been lost to wither in the rivers and waves of Styx. Her constant cries of agony and anger reside in my pounding heart, for she is the one who put the beat in my pulsating heart.

My core, can never be dented. Though my outsides are beautiful, they are as solid as a diamond; I am indeed the polished coal that has flourished into something spectacular, even extraordinary. I am nature in all of its magnificence and its strength. I am no longer a caged bird of my existence because the days of negligence and idiocy are over. The time has come for me to spread my golden and scorching red wigs and surpass the abundant thick, captivating forest of indulgence, naughtiness and curiosity. I am no longer an easy prey to life because I am now the hunter to my wildest aspirations. I will seek and obtain all my perspective eyes can see.