i mean i guess

I get a lot of stares walking down the street. Why shouldn't I? I'm kind of a nightmare of discordant styles Frankensteined from whatever thrift store I visited this week, but that suits me just fine. I don't remember much about home, but I'm still taken by how crazy the place could be. Call it my way of recapturing it, I guess. Claiming my little piece of my heritage.

Sometimes I think Heather is embarrassed by me, when I show up and we hang out. Figures. She's quiet and kind of reserved, doesn't often say what's on her mind but lets it lurk underneath the surface. Not me. I crack stupid jokes and only smile wider when she rolls her eyes and groans. I always seem to come out of nowhere, both physically and in what I say.

And, of course, we both have something else in common.

One night, something took a hold of me. Some near-shapeless, slicing gale wind that, even right now, I can feel raging underneath my skin. It sounds messed up, yeah, but it's true. The same thing happened to Heather, but hers has a lot more salt water and tentacles. I'm only just now starting to wrap my head around what it is, and come to terms with the kinds of things it want me to do.

Look. I don't believe that I was born with whatever this is, but sometimes I get the sense that there's some things about us that draw them in, you know? This thing could smell how chaotic I naturally was, I think. How easily I could be blown one way or the other by any distraction.

Maybe it could also tell how much I felt like I didn't have a chance. I was never good at school, and every year it feels like I get worse. I do stupid shit, try to have as much fun as I can to drown out that voice that tells me how screwed I am.

Maybe it preys on people who it feels have too weak of a will but to do what it says.