I’ve always been a thinker, as my folks put it. I seem to put my mind into things a bit too much every now and then, and I guess that was what kept me up for a while at nights (but that wasn’t all that kept me up), especially after the first day of seventh grade. It had been a quite unique year...

So far, it has been a particularly glum looking morning- the sky holds a cluster of heavy, gray nimbus clouds that lumber across it-  like the pupils being locked away to hell- I mean school. In my Social Studies class, we are asked to write down a couple of “good” things about ourselves personality-wise, and the first thing that comes to mind is, Isn’t this kind of narcissist? Oy vey…

Thankfully the teacher seems as nice as the main teacher- so she just kind of chuckles when I ask it aloud. The words tumble out of my mouth: “What if we don’t have anything good about ourselves?”

“Of course you have something good about yourself,” she replies softly. Or she’s thinking, Just write down something already, you little snot. And so, like every little angel ought to,  I write down stuff like generous, musical, funny, while snickering as my very tall, masculine, mustached desk partner writes in sloppy handwriting, artistic.

Later that day, in our introductory course on Language Arts, I am confronted with Do you have any hobbies? and all other meaningless junk for other peers to try to “relate to.” And I force my ever so diligent brain to spew out more nonsense that made me wish I was more relatable. After writing down everything that hopefully my classmates can relate to, the teacher all of a sudden comes and gathers our papers.

I finally come back home from that brutal day, but only then do the thoughts that hadn’t really nagged me at school come rushing back like a pack of stampeding bulls. Did you really write something that’s you? Or was that somebody that you wanted to be seen as? I take my\shoes off and holler a greeting at my mother. I remember that before summer vacation had ended, I purchased a lot of these hip looking sneakers, the athletic sort that all the try-hards in gym wear. They were nice, and completely clean- untarnished. It’s really ironic, since I’m not athletic Maybe I just got them because they looked cool. I don’t know. Maybe. And then one question challenges me and probes me further: Are you acting like this, thinking like this, and being like this because you’re just a drama queen? Yeah. I was, but that’s something I don’t want to admit. Not ever. No. Only to myself, perhaps out of mere vanity and self-satisfaction.

Speaking of which, there should be a “drama king,” because I’m a boy. Are there only drama queens? I don’t think the phrase “drama king” exists.

Outside, as the night sky shelters the atmosphere like an ink black dome, I ponder fervently of these circumstances, as I unpleasantly cram a mandatory algebra summer assignment (evidently was supposed to be done already) and try to write fashionably neat, which I acknowledge that as the year goes on, will unfortunately become scrawl. I start going back upstairs to go sleep at 12:00 A.M., I also remember what a procrastinator I am. I have a sinking feeling about how I was most likely going to repeat my vicious sleep-deprived cycle from 6th grade, once again. I lie in bed, sinking into the mattress.