By Lisa Marie BasileOriginal Source: nytimes.com

I sat on a wrought iron daybed facing an open window, and a warm breeze was pooling in. It was the first day in my second foster home. The room was made up to seem welcoming, but its pleasantness somehow felt oppressive. I felt dirty, worthless and consumed by fear.

I was about to start 10th grade for the second time, since I’d failed the year before. Earlier that morning, I said goodbye to my 10-year-old brother, helped him into a car, and watched him ride away to live with another foster family.

“Go ahead and hang up your clothes,” my new foster mother said. Sternness was her way of normalizing an abnormal situation. I was abnormal. I came from abnormal. None...click here to continue reading