I don’t belong in this world. I never have. I do the wrong things, eat the wrong foods, and think the wrong thoughts. I am too skinny and too fat. My sleep patterns leave me drained and exhausted. On rare days when I can act proper, it feels like I am watching myself from a distance. I have created relationships with other people my age, but not one is strong enough to break me away from my thoughts.

My parents like to ignore what they don’t understand. Their forced beliefs contradict my own. My uncle was the only one who understood me, who experienced even a tiny bit of my world. Although even when he had someone else who would take him places--take him away from me, the stillness of our sanctuary would always bring him back. Eventually, the lull became a tug and he left this world for good.

Without him, only when I am alone can I allow myself to retreat, to shed the facade that hides who I am to other people and escape to the safe box inside my head. I like to fold neat, precise, repetitive lines that calm my mind into a soothing numbness. I create globes, lanterns, and pretty birds that flutter around my head. Even when I haven’t slept all night, I can never leave my work unfinished.

Five days a week, I go to school. I try to learn the things other people have decided I should know. I walk home and complete the homework that the teachers believe will help me. There are only eighteen days left until the lessons end.

On particularly dark days, days I can't remember who I am or what I am still doing in this world, I draw the smooth, slanted lines that take me to the haven I conceived with my uncle. One day I will make them deep enough to carry me to him. But not yet, no, not yet. There are eighteen days left until the lessons end. I never leave my work unfinished.