Ever since the Queen of Sorrows bit my tongue when I was 5, I've been mute. A year later, I slipped and fell inside an ice cream cone and broke my legs, hoping to stick my tongue onto the big ball of chocolate. At 7, after my teacher decided I had learned how to read, she painted my white apple bright red and my cheeks have been the matching color ever since. At 8, the numbers cursed me because I called them stupid and couldn't add or subtract or multiply or divide them. That caused my father to start calling me stupid because I kept failing at math ever since. Rest of elementary school is a big blur.

When I was 12, Kurt Cobain died, and I felt jealous of someone for the first time in my life for he set sail to the greatest adventure of all, and I was left behind. At 13, I went to Bulgaria for a skiing trip with my father, his friends and my sister. The owners of the restaurant we ate at gave me a big, round plastic tray to sit on, and then they pushed me off. I ended up flying onto the street from the edge of the hill, and everyone thought I was dead for certain. I just got up, found my glasses and said, "I wanna go again!" This was the first time I saw panic in my fatherÕs eyes.

Age 14 was the first time I danced under the rain because I forgot my keys and couldn't get inside our apartment. I was bored and wet, and the raindrops wouldn't stop burning my skin if I stood still, so I danced and danced until my mom came home. She couldn't give me a reason for why rain is supposed to be bad, so whenever I danced with the raindrops again, I made sure she didnÕt know about it. At 15, I wanted to really die for the first time, but when I found out that my blood tasted like gummy bears, I screamed for band-aids.

The rest, again, is a big blur.

I still stand on my bed though, and throw myself on the floor to see if I can fly. If I can't, I just swim on the wood without getting wet and having to worry about fish tickling my ankles. I still hide inside ice cream cones and wait for someone to lick my head, then get bored when nothing happens. I feel weak and crushed under certain words and fall in love with aliens who tickle my throat.

I go to sleep every night, trying to figure out if I would miss anything if I didn't wake up...

That's when I realize there's nothing that keeps me going, yet I'm such a silly dreamer that I keep walking, searching for memories and hoping to bring them to life.