words i suppose

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

I wonder why I lose my voice. Why it is so hard to talk. Why I can read and write and go through so many words a day that are never aloud.

Then I remember the lonely tables, the safe corners, solo activities. The times assigned pet at recess. The loud environments I couldn't communicate in. The safe spaces barred to me because of rules I never understood. The people, friends and teachers and family, who showed through actions and words that I was undesired and alien and lesser and arrogant and never enough.