no one believes I am chinese because I am snow colored with freckles from the sun but really they were planted by the irish. perhaps if they cut me open they will expect me to bleed guinness. my hidden identity saves me a punch in the face and an expectation to be good at math. it is a compliment to be called a good student but i want to be multifaceted and unique like a snowflake, which has now become a loaded word due to those who load their guns more than their minds. so my As become Bs but only on report cards and never on my body. i say i like train rides and he shows me the railroad tracks on his arms that he made with razors that keep his cheeks clean. he brags of his own personal transit and my teenaged self believes it is my new job to keep him from his next self-harm journey. another he, a different and equally terrible he, cuts off my tongue as men so often do to talk and talk while i am so invisible i become silence itself. i wonder if the top song on his spotify end-of-year wrap playlist is the sound of his own voice. last summer i caught the bouquet at my cousin’s wedding which i thought was supposed to give you good luck in love but now i think it was cursed. i am seventeen years old and this has been the worst year of my life. my most common phrase is i don’t mind but really i mind very much. my tongue fumbles too much around the word no so it does something else instead. my body says no for me and now my soul lives in a sealed cave which no one can enter. my nails are always painted red because it is less expensive than to soak in your own blood. i do not smoke nor shoot any hard drugs but caffeine is a baby drug which i take with milk and caramel. it has given me what my mom calls a permanent swimming ring around the waistline but at least this means i will never drown. i want to scribble this note before this memory floats but i start and it is 3, 2, 1, pencils down. This particular time is up. everything else remains to be         written.

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Caitlyn Hasenfratz