I’m discovering me out here, for the good and the bad. There’s things I’m proud of and stuff I’d rather forget, but it all makes up who I am and what I was, and what I’ve got to work with if I want to become something else.

Thank you,′ Mom says, dropping one of my bags to the floor with a huff. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on her upper lip. It must be exhausting carrying around all of my issues.

We use objects to navigate spaces, making a map in our heads as neurons fire, pathways so well-worn we don’t even know we reference them as we move from one location to the next, the same pattern. Every day.

I’m living my life waiting for the man who comes for me like one did for Anna, with hungry eyes behind the wheel and rope in the trunk. I’m ready. But I don’t know how much longer I can wait.

To be aware of your own doom is no easy thing.

My mom has poetry in her, something I never would have guessed. It must be where my words come from, flowing through me with a power equaled only by the fire in my gut. They’re moving now, escaping in a way I didn’t mean to or expect.

But I’ve smelled you, smelledthe wrongness of all that’s been done to you by hands familiar and those of strangers. You chose to stop acknowledging a world that has treated you foully. What’s saner than that?

When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn’t understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what.

It all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines.

All my life people have told me how strong I am, like it’s the best thing I’ve got to offer. I know they mean it in all the ways – physically, emotionally, mentally – and I am. But I’m also tired, worn out from hurting and being expected to come out on top of everything – even a car crash. I’m exhausted in all the ways I’m supposed to be strong...