I sat alone at a restaurant. I felt uncomfortable so I kept looking back. Behind me was just a wall. I’d anxiously sip my orange juice, and when the waitress asked me if I wanted a glass, I knew I couldn’t afford another $3.50 glass of orange juice, but I also knew it would give me an outlet for my restlessness. So I said, “Sure, thank please.”

Everybody stared at me maybe because I was eating at a restaurant alone or maybe because I would wear a yellow blazer with no shirt underneath. Who’s to say. After I drank my seventh orange juice cup, I still didn’t feel right. Everybody was watching my every move. “Look at that depressed chum,” they all said as they gazed into my eyes. By the third grade I quit taekwondo, but I still know what I’m capable of.

As I was handed my eighth orange juice, I decided to make my move. I clinked my glass, but this restaurant was cheap and the sound of a plastic fork hitting glass isn’t much of a clinky sound at all. “Hey now,” I said confidently yet with a slight quiver in my voice. Everybody continued to stare me down. The stares were so strong, lasers burst through their eyes, piercing mine. “Hey now,” I said again. I heard a laugh somewhere. They use repetition in all the best speeches.

“Hey now what,” a voice said somewhere. It sounded unhappy.

“I’m getting there.” The stakes were high. I looked at my audience. “This is wrong. This is all wrong. You are all wrong.” I fumbled some words and drool slipped down my face. Everyone was staring, nobody was listening.

“Is that all?” someone screamed.

“No,” I said. It was all. But now I needed to say something else. “In the fourth grade I killed my pet frog because I didn’t want to take care of it anymore.”

“How’d you kill it?”

“I put my hands around it and squeezed still I couldn’t squeeze anymore. His eyes went black.”

“Nobody asked you.” I was getting mixed signals.

Everybody stopped staring at me after that. They paid their bills and left the restaurant. Nobody seemed bothered by the bill. They left as if they had nowhere to go but knew they needed out.

​I sat down. Now all I could think about was how uncomfortable this chair was. I didn’t like it, but I figured I stick around for a little while.  

I hate that I have different moods. I just want one. 

I don't care what mood it is as long as it remains constant. I hate that "tired" is a mood for me. When I'm tired, everything about me feels different. I don't talk the same, I don't look the same. I taste sour and my back stiffens. 

Same with hunger. "Hungry" is a mood for me. When I want food but don't have food, my arms fall to the floor. My English worsens and so does my personality. I lean into depression and my grasp on gratitude fades. I wander but cannot move, so I sink into the ground and wish this was every day of my life. 

Some moods are good. 

Sometimes I find myself overly excited for no known reason. The smile on my face walks all the way to the back of my head. I try walking to the grocery store, but I end up dancing instead. And when I arrive, my dance moves become even more elaborate and energetic. I like like a psychopath and feel like one too. I sing. I can't sing, and yet in this mood I sing and somehow it sounds kind of good. 

Sometimes I feel like everyone is dead. I won't be tired, but I'll feel like there's no point in everything. And then the dark clouds go away and the sun comes out and somehow I find myself laughing in the sunshine again. I wish it were always that way. 

Okay.

The second I turned off my alarm, I turned on the news. In ten minutes, the sun was going to explode. I had gotten in a good habit of reading for ten minutes every morning when I wake up, but I didn't want to die in the middle of a sentence of Crime and Punishment. Then I thought I should finally sit down to watch Jaws because people always get angry when I say I haven't seen it. But if the first ten minutes isn't very good, then that would be a huge bummer. ACHOO! I sneezed. I was going to go get a tissue, but I realized there was no time for that. I wiped my snout on my sleeve. It was a black t-shirt that said "The Kinks" on the front of it. I felt like it would be an incredibly lame shirt to die in, so I took it off and threw it on the floor. I only know two songs by them anyways. Next to my shirt on the ground, I saw some tape that was stuck to the floor. I picked at it for a while, and it wouldn't come off. It stuck to the floor real well. Quality stuff, I guess. Then I smacked myself on the face because I didn't want to die trying to get tape off my floor. I was getting super duper cold, so I went into the laundry room where the thermostat resides. I went to go turn it up, but then I remembered I don't have time to worry about the temperature. I jogged back to my room, but I stubbed my toe somehow and fell down on the floor. What an idiot, I thought. I tripped on the floor. I don't even know how that's possible. And boy, does my big toe hurt. You never stub any other toe. If you stub a toe, it's always the big toe. That's so obnoxious. The other toes don't deserve any better. The big toe works just as hard as all the others. As I was thinking about this, I started to think this would be a dumb thing to think about if -- -- --