You’re naturally gifted in the art of pretending.

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

Psalm 25:16

Dear Me,

You look at them like the plague you don't want to catch. Who set this seed inside your heart you insist on watering?

Maybe it was Belinda who lived in the trailer with her mother because her father left. She told you the same thing would probably happen to your parents, too, and that it's okay, it all works out, she says as stray hair halos in dirty waves around her braid.

No, Belinda. That would not be okay.

But your heart doesn't know how to communicate this kind of thing, so you run to your mother on the playground–the first-grade teacher with the "go inside" bell silent in her hand–and you tell her to give Belinda detention.

She laughs because it's not within her jurisdiction, and Belinda technically didn't do anything wrong. And then you get a feeling that will be a feeling you suckle and nurse for a long time. It's the upside-down feeling, like everyone's glued to the ceiling, and you're the only person standing upright.

As you march forward through time, there will be friends. You're naturally gifted in the art of pretending. You watch people like they're a thing to be observed instead of a gift to understand. You mimic the way they laugh, the way they cock their heads. You watch sitcoms and The Simpsons and pick up jokes and the art of hooking interest to the end of your sentences. You mime what you must do but never truly feel.

An act of survival.

There are some that leave bread crumb trails, and you stupidly trip over your own feet to follow them. You're led to give yourself away like sliding a dull knife through warm bread—a finger, a toe, a shoulder. An absent-minded moment when you pour a little too much to drink. And you drink it heavily to be anyone other than you.

You come to sometimes, totally coherent. The girl people acknowledge and with whom people joke. You're a soft pretty and then a fierce one, and my goodness, girl, you're not going to want to hear this, but one day, that pretty goes away.

Did you ever stop to think about that?

You probably feel sorry for me now, plain-faced and crow-footed, but when I look around, I see fresh hearts surrounding me. People who love me and not the joke.

And what do you see when you do the same?

Yeah. I know.

Talk soon,

Ericka