Grated Cheese

My first memory was when my mom's friend made me a green jelly cake for my third birthday. I was four when my grandma passed away. I chewed gum at her funeral, not knowing what it meant to be at a funeral. I have bowlegs since grade 1, because I decided it was comfortable to stand that way. I ­used codes like "Guppy" and "Ruby" to call my friends in my diary. I thought "Behavior" was an elegant code name because I didn't understand English back then. I knew about sex since grade 5. I thought I was addicted to sexuality. Women's chests enchanted me, though back then I thought they shouldn't. At four, a half-brother was born without my knowing. I guessed about his existence in grade 8. My first date was at the movies but we spoke five times at most. Classes ended at 4:20pm but we would sit until 6pm in silence every Wednesday. I fell in love in grade 11. My first poem was about how my arms were dry hay that couldn't touch the gold on his lips. I stopped listening to The Strokes when we broke up some years later. I still don't stand near the edge of the pavement because I don't trust my legs, or my brain. I can't stay in an apartment by myself with knives nearby. The first time I smoked weed I drifted through time. I came back home later, drank a beer, listened to Machine Gun Kelly, and wrote the grad school application to my now grad school. The second time I smoked, I laughed so much that I shed tears, until I thought I drifted in time again and the past jumped out like a demon and my tears turned to those of horror. I love women's bodies but I don't tell my parents. Sex revolts me ever since the breakup. I write poems as if three or more people write them. I wish I had studied creative writing in freshman year and not senior year. I tried to look ugly on purpose on the streets to avoid assaults. I salivate at cheese. My sanctuary is poetry, prose, and jigsaw puzzles. I wish I were a family person. I don't think my pain is mine alone. Love is a piece of sweet fruit, and I don't really like fruit. My first love often appears in my dreams, inside another dream, inside yet another dream; every time I thought God gave me a chance to love him again. Harry Potter's audiobooks bring me to tears in public. I want to adopt a child and teach them all I know about this wonderful world. I cut ties with most of my friends after I leave a phase of life. If I met myself in the past, I would mess her up just to see how my life would be different now. I'm learning to live for myself. I care about what I experience, not about the fact that I am the one experiencing it. I am anonymous, and only I can tell the story of my life.