I spent a lot of time alone outdoors growing up.
A lot of time.
It got to the point that some days I'd be sitting in the back of my dull beige classroom, and on the outside I'd be staring out into nothing but on the inside I'd be remembering how it felt being barefoot and knee-deep in sun-warmed mud, cutting my palms and soles to bits against craggy rock, leaning into the wind and screaming into the ocean, sprinting through the woods and standing dead silent in the dark in a wheat field in a thunderstorm, and feeling grit under my nails and bone and wood and rock and metal in my hands
And I'd look around at my stupid, flimsy pressboard desk, and the beige walls, and the grey ceiling, and feel soft, stagnant air circulate through the vents in delicate, dainty little puffs against my cheeks, and listen to kids my age who I couldn't understand and didn't feel connected to talk about things that made my brain go numb and melt out my ears while some fake-smiley adult pretended they knew how I felt
While back home where my siblings didnt know me and my parents didn't like me the house would be dark, empty, and cold, day after day, and the only satisfaction I knew I'd get would be if someone twice my size and three times my age got in my face and fucking tried it,
And I'd think,
This isn't real.
This is designed, and this is weak.
This is cardboard façades with nothing inside, this is tissue paper, this is Styrofoam packing peanuts and puffed rice wafers and the bottom three millimeters of day-old room-temperature water
And I'd get so fucking angry, so frustrated, just so stone-cold livid, helpless and furious, that sometimes I'd start to cry, not because I was sad but because my teeth were soft and round and dull and my fingers felt like they were brand-new pink pearl erasers splitting in half and everything was too much and not enough and all I needed in the whole wild world was to shred the air to pieces for the crime of being too fucking empty, too fucking soft, not *real* enough, like a wild animal clawing into prey only to have puffy cotton candy and soap bubbles spill out, sweet and tasteless and saccharine where it should be hot, bright, loud and solid and sharp.
So when the English teacher- a tall, thin man with glasses who smelled like strong patchouli and liked to ask us to "talk about our feelings" asked me to write about my life, that was what I wrote.
He told me I had a "powerful gift" and smiled, flashing straight, dull, soft round teeth.
I remember he'd ask me every day if he could read my work aloud to the class, every single day, and every day I would say "no", until one afternoon he just took my paper off my desk and did it anyways.
I was a rule-follower. Never broke the rules, never stepped out of line. I would never just leave class in the middle of a lesson, so I guess for a moment I was someone else.
I don't remember hearing him start to speak, but I remember sprinting out the door, hearing it slam behind me, and just not stopping until I was somewhere outside with the grass and the sky and the sun and a ringing inside my head.
After a while, I went back, and by then I guess he'd finished talking.
I sat down at my desk and finished the lesson.
I thought I'd be in trouble or something after that, but nobody mentioned it.
After the bell, I went home to the dark, cold, empty house and waited for something to fight.
That was years ago. Decades, now.
To tell you the truth, though, I don't think anything has changed.
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