I think my brain is actually damaged. This
realization is coming from the fact that really twisted things come out
of it and I don’t know why, or where they come from, because I
certainly didn’t come up with them. Don’t look at me, I’m the vessel, just the hand holding the pencil, just the writer. I don’t actually go out and sit down and think of these crazy things; they think of me.
I don’t make them happen. They
create themselves and simply pour out of me like a waterfall, coming
out my mouth and my eyes and my ears, filling up my brain like a steady
flood of worlds and feelings and sounds. Sometimes, if I
try to actually think of something, it feels like I’m walking through a
very populace cocktail party held in a broom closet where all five
hundred people are wearing masks and ball gowns, even the men. And
I’m the only one wearing jeans and have gotten somehow shunted over to
the place by the artichoke dip where I turn into part of the wall and
manage to eat an entire bowl of chips on my own.
That’s why I write them down. Because
if I don’t the entire bowl of dip is going to be gone too and my
fingers are going to smell like sour cream and artichoke and I’ll have
a stomach ache like you wouldn’t believe.
~zoe estrin-grele, 17 (brattleboro, vermont)
