When I was younger, I was obsessed with everything that wasn’t my immediate reality. Like most children, I dreamt of finding fairy circles deep in the woods, waking up one morning to find a letter on my desk inviting me to learn magic at some school far far away, or coming across a dragon egg while playing hide-and-seek on my friend’s ranch. I even redecorated and painted my room to look like the Gryffindor common room at one point so I could pretend just a little longer that I was living in an entirely different world far from the one of those around me
The myth of childhood told me that when I got older, I would innately gain some kind of understanding about the world that would allow me to move forward both productively and confidently.
I felt strange. Not really a tourist or visitor, but feeling like one in my own city. Connected, but not necessarily, and really only just in the occasional situation, and occasional environment. I felt a bit fragmented like I had been unraveled and was desperately trying to piece myself back together, yet I was always missing a few bits, and I found that they were much more important than I originally thought they were. I spent much of my time in America wandering, both mentally and physically. Much of my days passed at the backs of coffee shops alone or wandering through bookstores trailing my fingers along shelves, yet buying nothing.
“Something’s wrong,” he whispered, laying the bird down on the table. It slid out of his palms, its head bending backwards so the nape of
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