tart_Otherworld= 
tart_Otherworld_noname= 

tartOtherworld_Story_1=
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When I was a kid.
I was deathly scared of everything.
Scared of the moon overhead that I felt so certain was going to fall...
Scared of the tall monster in a suit I saw on my brother's computer late at night...
Scared of the vast and suffocating darkness that surrounded my grandparent's house in the middle of nowhere...
That was so long ago.
It's hard to comprehend it now that I'm older.
...
I eventually got over most of the things that got me then.
But I would argue these days I'm even more scared.
The things I'm scared of are just... different now.
Less tangible...
When I was young, describing what I was afraid of was easy.
It was all physical things I could point at.
I can't really do that anymore...
...
I think I just need to breathe.
Take a break from all the worrying somehow.
It's just not very easy when the things I fear surround me.
...
Hopefully I'll figure it out.




tartOtherworld_Story_2=
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I remember when I was still in elementary school, the single best day of the year was Field Day.
If you’re not familiar with Field Day, it was a day where all the kids would go out to play for an entire day with a bunch of fun activities set up.
Think bouncy castles, backyard games, sports, fun food…
My mind always goes back to the snow-cones.
I remember, somehow pretty vividly,
while singing and dancing with friends to some of that corny 2010s music,
“This is the best day of my life.”
And it probably was to some degree, especially if I can remember it now.
How crazy would that be, if someday when I was 10 was the best day of my life.
But when I try to think about it…
I can’t think of another day that was “the best day of my life”.
But how could that be true?
I’ve experienced a whole another lifetime since that day.
I’ve grown, I’ve loved, I’ve had downs so my ups could feel higher.
And I can’t beat a damn snow-cone?!
…
Nostalgia obviously plays a big factor in this…
But something about growing up.
It just feels a bit sad.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a snow-cone.
…
Tomorrow won’t be the best day of my life.
Maybe no single day of my life from here on out will ever beat that day.
But I like to be optimistic about things.
So tomorrow, maybe I’ll have a snow-cone.




tartOtherworld_Story_3_1=
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My brother and I would sometimes stay at our great aunt's during the summer.
She lived in a spacious rural house with a garden, far into the countryside.
Just a week or two at a time, but being city kids, time went by agonizingly slowly.
That said, I had two of my craziest childhood memories there, so I'll share one of them.
...
Once our boredom and homesickness reached such heights that we considered escaping.
We started formulating a plan when we noticed that one of the dogs kept disappearing for days at a time.
It must know a way out, we thought.
So we followed it around and found a part of the garden that's connected to the neighbor's.
And we did a little trespassing.
Which sounds clever, but we still needed to climb their fence. And we could've left our great aunt's house the same way.
Once out on the street we followed the dog through a few villages, and made plans for the upcoming voyage.
For example, borrowing a bed from a local kindergarten and sleeping in a forest.
But before we could put these into action, a car stopped by and the driver asked us what we were doing.
After explaining enthusiastically, he gave us chocolate and offered to take us back to the village we came from.
So we sat next to his daughter, and after seeing the villages go by in reverse, arrived back where we started.
Our great aunt rallied the entire village by then, and gave me a slap as a welcome.
...
Sometimes I wonder what could've happened if no one picked us up, or if someone else did.




tartOtherworld_Story_3_2=
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My brother and I would sometimes stay at our great aunt's during the summer.
She lived in a spacious rural house with a garden, far into the countryside.
Just a week or two at a time, but being city kids, time went by agonizingly slowly.
That said, I had two of my craziest childhood memories there, so I'll share one of them.
...
Once I was coming back in from the garden and found something surprising in the entrance hall.
That is, the entire room being filled to the brim with what I assumed were bees.
I don't know if it was the shock, or that I was harder to scare as a child...
But I just walked through the cloud of insects and went inside, excitedly telling our great aunt what I saw.
It turned out there was a wasp nest in the attic, and they somehow bit their way through the plastic ceiling.
The only way to exit the house was through that room, so unsurprisingly we stayed inside for the rest of the day.
Soon, the help my great aunt called arrived, and the nest was removed.
Best part is that we could stay elsewhere during the process.
...
Sometimes I wonder what could've happened if the wasps attacked me.




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One time, me and the neighbors thought it would be a great idea to make a rock stove with some of the stones in the creek.
We started by making a small fire (as all good stories start) and then began scattering assorted nuts on top of the rocks.
Satisfied with our work, we left them to cook, and went around to the other side of the house.
A short while later, a loud crack rang out, and we heard some objects hitting the roofs of the shed, the house, and the cars.
A couple of nuts and pebbles landed around us, too.
After a pause, we ran back over to check on our stove.
Needless to say, it was no longer intact.
The water in the extremely weak stones had expanded and exploded, scattering our snacks to the wind.




tartOtherworld_Story_5=
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When I was little, I lived in a very small village near the capital.
I had a neighbor.
This girl, a couple years older than me, ginger, freckles... well, a village girl.
You know the type.
She never particularly liked me, it just so happens that a grandparent of her grandparents was a cousin of a grandparent of my grandparents.
Our houses were close, there wasn't a fence between our families' gardens, so naturally we would often play in the yard together.
She loved to catch bugs and slugs and especially snails.
She kept them as pets.
She had a whole box of living snails in her father's garage.
She would spray them with water and feed them leaves and other greenery.
I really didn't like snails.
I found their bodies to be too slimy.
Dirty.
But she would make me hold them.
Until eventually I warmed up to them.
However one day a stray cat knocked the box over and all the snails escaped during the night.
She, however, did not cry.
I haven't even seen her cry.
One time, I recall, I made her mad at me.
She invited me over to her room to play a game she had on her computer.
I haven't even touched a phone up until then, so of course I had to agree.
She brought me a cup of cold milk.
I looked inside and saw something black float around in my cup.
I was squeamish, and knew no manners, so I called it disgusting.
It was her father's favorite cup.
I'm... still not sure what I did wrong that day, but I felt very guilty.
Honestly I still sometimes do.
Next time we played, we went to my house.
In the attic of our house, was a very big box of old toys.
Most were left over from church donations, before it closed.
We found a big dollhouse and wrote stories.
Fascinating stories about dysfunctional families, love triangles, angsty teenagers, aliens and zombies...
She enjoyed it a lot and started coming over more often.
One day, my dad overheard us play.
He beat me up for playing monsters.
He said monsters came from Satan.
He threw away most of my toys.
I didn't know at the time, but him and his wife were getting a child.
I found baby bottles in the attic and unboxed them thinking they were toys.
He yelled at me.
And I didn't even know why.
How could I have known.
One day, another kid from across the road decided to bully me.
He had a big pool I could see from my balcony, and his dad had many many cars.
He would ride around me on his bicycle and laugh at me because I was too scared to learn to ride one.
He wasn't wrong, so I didn't fight back.
Then she came.
She had a flower in her hand.
She said, it wasn't just any flower.
It was a poisonous venomous flower that can kill you in one touch.
And she was okay because she got poisoned a long time ago, but survived granting her immunity.
He ran away in fear, calling for his parent to help him.
And even though I saw him many times after, he didn't bully me since.




tartOtherworld_Story_6=
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When I was very young, I had a recurring dream.
It's hard to remember any details, but it always centered around a carousel.
It started out far too wide and long for me to even approach it, but when I grew older it shrunk to fit my size, as most things did.
In some strange week while I was very sick, the dream changed.
Suddenly, another character appeared beyond just me, and handed me a paper bag.
What it contained, I'm not sure, but after taking it I felt suddenly like I could never be light again
A cosmic heaviness that could stick with me for longer and longer each time I fell asleep.
I forgot what in particular was in the bag, but I know it was exceedingly generic.
Possibly a peanut butter and banana sandwich, or a collection of bagels, or a pencil case.
But perhaps, it is because I never understood its exact contents that the bag stuck with me for so many years rather than being dissolved into the haze of memory...
A mystery is much more interesting than a fact, after all.




tartOtherworld_Story_7=
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I remember back when I was 11 or 12, it was the middle of winter, and I had just gotten dropped off by the bus home from school.
This was well past the point where my parents decided I was old enough to walk myself home from the bus stop, and it really wasn't that far.
For a reason that I can't quite remember, I decided to run home that day, as fast as I could.
As a child, I was full of energy, and incredibly clumsy, so as I was running home, my foot got caught on the sweatpants I was wearing that day...
And I fell. Nearly on my face, straight onto the curb.
It hurt like nothing I had quite felt before, nearly every part of my body burnt from the sharp concrete.
I just remember the fear I felt, the tears that welled up in my eyes as I tried to dust myself off.
I didn't know how bad it was.
All I knew was the feeling of blood running down my leg as I hobbled the rest of the way home.
I didn't have a phone at the time, so all I could do was get home as fast as I could.
I remember calling for my dad when I walked in the house, and both of us immediately rushed into the bathroom to see how bad it was.
It turned out that I had skinned both my knees and elbows almost completely raw, and they were bleeding like you wouldn't believe.
It's funny, in the moment the peroxide that he used to disinfect the wounds felt a thousand times more painful than everything I had just gone through.
I never ran home again after that day.
If I look closely, I can still see the scars on my knees, along with several other marks from accidents I've had as a kid.
Even though they were painful, I wouldn't trade them for anything.




tartOtherworld_Story_8=
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When I was still in kindergarten (I must have been at most 5 years old).
I was returning home from a walk with my mom late at night when I asked her,
How many stars there were in the sky?
She didn't know how to answer.
And I didn't take "billions, trillions" as an answer.
So I started counting them myself.
And ever since then I don't think I've ever finished counting.
…
I think…
I should be looking up at the sky more often.




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When I was a kid, I rarely remember my Mom being around.
My Dad was working abroad, and she was working as a teacher for a school that's far away from where we live.
So, my Grandma took care of me and my sister.
I loved her, she made us happy, made our favorite meals, albeit she was a bit... overprotective.
She brought us to school, to shop for groceries, or to just walk around at the park...
...She was the best, she was the reason I had so many childhood friends!
And that was because she was so social with the other parents at school.
My life... Kind of revolved around her.
...
Then, came Fourth grade. I was having so much fun during our first week, like I said. I had so many friends.
But on Thursday... While waiting for Grandma to pick me up after school
...My mom came instead, she looked sad and frustrated.
On the car drive home, she told me what happened.
Grandma... Left us. Off to my Aunt's
Because of some stupid argument she and Mom had about my sister.
...But Mom also said that... I was getting transferred to a different school.
One closer to where she worked, while my sister moved at my mom's school.
That was... kind of life changing for kid-me to hear.
I had to leave my friends behind, but it was basically everything...
The rest of my childhood was spent in the school my Mom worked at after school, alone.
Because no one can watch over us when Dad is abroad.
Mom picks me up at my new school, brings me to her school, and we had to wait for my Sister's classes to be done.
The new school was... pretty rough on little old me, got bullied, left out, barely made friends.
...
I...hate my Grandma.
Even til' now.
Words just can't express how much I hate her.
Who the hell...
...Leaves two kids at their schools, knowing that they are waiting for their grandma to pick them up?
The least she could've done is pick us up and then leave...
...
...E-ever since that happened, I always wondered what would my life would become...
If she didn't leave us.
I probably would have stayed with my friends, and developed like a normal kid.
But, I guess because of her... I started to see that my Mom was amazing in her own way...
She really had to pick up the slack though, and that she did.
She became more attentive, got better at cooking, and slowly made up for all the times she and Dad couldn't be there for us.
I... really look up to my Mom now. I aspire to be that hardworking, strong, and confident of a person.
As for my Grandma?
...
...
I still really hate her.
...She was the reason why my childhood felt full.
But she’s also the one who took it away...
...I-I don’t think I have it in me to forgive her.




tartOtherworld_Story_10=
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I don't remember much from when I was a kid.
Most of my memories are hazy.
I remember some things though.
As a kid, everything took longer.
Everything was larger.
Everything held more importance.
The day felt like it lasted for ages, I would get bored and stare at the clock, waiting for time to pass.
The small town I used to live in seemed limitless and sprawling.
Tiny things going wrong was enough to make me cry and yell, like losing a game.
Nowadays, I don't know the last time I've been bored.
Nowadays, I live in a city ten times larger, I can leave it within half an hour.
It feels so small.
Nowadays...
Well, I guess I still cry over small things, but I don't act out in the same way.
The world just seemed.. More exciting. More fun. More.. everything.
Just, more.
Nowadays, I can barely find anything that fulfills me, anything that makes me feel good about myself and my life longterm.
Yet, when I was younger, things like that were so, so, so abundant.
As a kid, there wasn't a constant emptiness in the back of my mind, always wanting more.
Maybe that's what it means to grow up.
The world didn't change.
It didn't get any smaller or lesser.
I just became More.




tartOtherworld_Story_11=
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I’ve never wanted a dog 
and i don’t think i ever will
They are large 
or small
They are all 
Scary
Foreboding, rather
Ominous
Akin to clouds
quiet
quiet
Loud
Thunder marks the storm
It doesn’t rain anymore 
Not truly, not in a while
The brutal enormity
is sorely missing
***
Alfons dyker sällan upp
Bland de regntrötta vågorna jag grubblar i 
Men då och då skvalpar han iland
På en klippstrand vid stugan
Stugan utan namn
***
I’ve been branded
Thunder marks me
Struck in the verdant lowlands
Där vi gick med Alfons 
Liminal hills, foxglove, wind
We share the atmosphere 
Alfons and the downpour 
Petrichor 
Så lång ögat når
***
Jag läste Storm-Stina hos mormor
Eller läste hon den för mig?
boken var besynnerligt formativ
Jag ser henne i havet, huvet, vinden som viner
Jag ser henne vid stugan
Båda mår bättre ute
Alfons och Stina
***
I’ve never wanted a dog
and i don’t think i ever will
but i yearn for you Alfons
We only ever met once or twice
Sent to the vet, lost to time
Tack för att du skvalpar upp ibland.




tartOtherworld_Story_12=
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When I was 3, I got my first pair of glasses. 
Two years later, I got hearing aids.
Since then, my vision and hearing have continued to deteriorate, though it has slowed as I have gotten older.
My parents obviously knew something was up. Most people don’t need hearing aids at 5 years old.
Eventually, I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder affecting connective tissues.
Alongside the vision and hearing loss, I am at higher risk of retinal detachments, my joints are weaker, as well as various other effects.
At the time though, most of that didn’t matter to 9 year old me.
What I cared about the most was that it kept me from playing football.
The higher risk of retinal detachments meant that I was advised not to play contact sports, among other things.
I’m not supposed to ride rollercoasters, or go skiing, or do anything that may place a physical stress on my eyeballs.
I remember all the things I missed out on or had to do differently because of the disorder.
All my friends played on my middle school’s football team, without me.
I just had to sit around, killing time, on trips to amusement parks.
Always sat in the front of the class, often away from my friends, just so I could read the damn board.
Doing something different in the back whenever my martial arts lessons would do sparring.
Checking out of conversations at lunch because at some point it became too difficult to hear what people are saying.
Eventually, I kind of just…grew numb to all of it.
It’s just the way it is.
All I’ve ever known.
But I do sometimes still wonder about what I missed out on.
What would have been different if a particular gene wasn’t wrong.
…
Sometimes I just want to ride a rollercoaster.




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I remember this really strange hobby I had as a kid.
I don't know why I would do it, nor why I stopped doing it.
Staring out the window.
I would dedicate hours of my days to just sitting beside the window and staring at things.
Sometimes I would stare outside at home.
Watching the trees sway when it was windy, or wondering what kind of lives the people across the street had.
I would watch them go about their day, make up stories about them and give them monologues.
"Oh, that man over there is walking really fast!"
"I bet he's secretly a superhero trying to defeat the Dark Council!"
He really was just trying to make it to a meeting he was late to, or something like that.
Sometimes I would stare outside in the car.
Watching the raindrops on the window and betting on which one was going to win the race.
Or imagining a stick figure doing parkour, jumping from car to car as they passed by.
I don't think I had anything better to do.
My curiosity about the world was far more important than anything else I had going on.
My imagination was my biggest source of entertainment.
But I don't stare out the window anymore.
In fact, I go out of my way to close the curtain on the window next to my desk.
Is it my curiosity that disappeared?
Maybe I know too much about the world to find it interesting at this point.
Is it my imagination that disappeared?
I can't create fun stories and games to entertain myself anymore.
Maybe I find them unrealistic, or childish.
Or maybe, I fear the world outside more than anything inside.
I'd rather seal myself away, and not think about what happens outside.
Because I can't handle it.
When I was a kid, I was blissfully ignorant.
I didn't have any reason to hide from the world.
But I've realized, as you grow up, you start to learn about the truth that was hiding behind all the whimsy you saw in the world as a kid.
I don't like knowing about the truth.
I'd like to go back to when I didn't know about it.




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I used to write letters to myself
Every night, obsessively, to another self in another world, for months
I got the idea after staying up too late one night to watch Star Trek
I wasn't supposed to, but my Aunt would let me
She always told me it was for my cultural good
On this particular night, Worf returned to the Enterprise to find things..
..a little bit wrong
Differences emerging in subtle ways
Easy to write off if you're not paying attention
But now I was paying attention
Every night I'd write myself a letter
Packed with small but specific details about my day, my thoughts, my life
Then I'd reread the letters back
To make sure they hadn't changed
There had been moments before, when things changed
Everything and everyone shifted in ways I couldn't pinpoint, but still felt
Hours later, things would feel right again, but I was still worried
Worried about one day finding myself trapped in another dimension, unaware
So I wrote letters and memorized them every night
Surely a parallel me would write similar letters, just with small differences
Much later, a psychiatrist would tell me these were likely symptoms of paranoia and anxiety
And I was old enough then not to question this diagnosis
But I have to wonder now
Knowing you're reading this
Did you write letters too?
And did they ever change?
Because one day
Mine did




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I remember this fable from my dad a lot, even when he hasn't told it many times.
It tells the story of a Chinese family, where luck affects their lives.
It starts with a farmer that looses their horse, clearly due to bad luck.
But then the horse returns with another horse, great luck.
The child of the farmer wanted to tame this new horse, but fell off of it and broke their leg. 
Bad luck, again.
A few days later, all able-bodied men were supposed to join a war, but the child had their legs broken so couldn't join.
And the story goes back and forth how bad luck and good luck aren't different things, they're just luck, and you just have to look at it differently.
...
Considering this story, I think that luck has had a big effect on my life.
Specially during my youngest years, they are the formative years, after all.
Through luck, I was usually the youngest in my classes. After all, I didn't decide when to be born.
And through luck I was decided to be the target of bullying.
There was a lot of abuse, towards me, my stuff and...
Because of bad luck, one of my aggressors was the child of someone with a lot of power in the school.
So I was punished. 
For being bullied.
Instead of the aggressors.
And the bullying didn't even stop, it just moved to other times of day.
...
But being bullied helped me run faster, as I had to outrun people trying to target me.
I also found more interest in math, as during recesses I was locked inside with a math teacher.
But I also lost valuable stuff.
I was very good in chess, beating some people around 10 years older than me.
But the new school I went to didn't have a chess club and my capabilities quickly deteriorated. 
I'm a worse chess player today than when I was in that school.
...
One of the experiences I remember clearer is kind of funny, if sad.
I was being hit by a lot of other kids, in the face.
I think I was 7 years old, maybe 6.
We were on top of a grass field.
And one of my teeth fell out as they hit me.
I spent hours trying to search for my teeth, I cried hard for having lost it.
...
I felt worse from having lost the teeth for the tooth fairy than from being hit.
In the end, I ended up in a better school, with more opportunities than if I had stayed in my original class.
Was it bad luck to be bullied?
Most people would say yes.
I'm not so sure nowadays.




tartOtherworld_Story_16=
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Going back to older consoles really makes you realize,
they were held together on a dream and nothing more.
Sometimes as a kid, I'd take games out of the GameBoy to listen to the static.
Maybe do a little bit of cartridge tilting.
It felt like this eldritch thing I was harnessing, it was frightening.
Not technophobia, I wasn't afraid of the TV or anything.
I just thought maybe it could come alive when I wasn't looking.
We need a word for that.
...
Those lights old consoles made when they were on,
eerie, still pastels. I had nightmares about them.
When the disc would skip on my PS2, my heart would jump into my throat.
It still does a little, honestly.
The claustrophobic silence of an error screen.
Haunting, beautifully chilling melodies of a PS1's hard drive failing.
It's art in and of itself. Terrifying and abstract.
If I grew up on sanitized stuff like the PS5 or the Switch,
would I still have the same relationship with technology?
Would I still treat it the same way, despite itself?
I don't know, and it's a good thing I don't have to.
Maybe it's also a good thing it's what my nightmares were about.
Means they weren't about anything worse.




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Almost every day I wonder...
What shapes a person?
When I was younger, I lived next to two brothers.
Every single day I went outside, caring about nothing but having fun.
Life was easier. We played hide and seek, tag, football, made up our own rules, anything one can think of.
We walked around the neighbourhood until sundown and my mom didn't know where I was.
At the end of the day, I went home, fell asleep, and on the next day I went outside eagerly waiting for when I ring their doorbell again.
That was a long time ago. Before we moved away from my home country.
The truth is, as people there are some things many of us naturally take for granted.
Things that most people can't imagine their life without.
...
I don't remember anything from when I was a child.
I don't remember anything from anytime, really.
I could tell you that a certain event has happened,
I could tell you how I feel about it,
But inside my mind, nothing actually comes up.
It's like reading a torn page out of a book with half the words scribbled out.
If there's anything it's hazy, unintelligible almost.
Almost every day I wonder...
What's a human without their experiences?
It's hard for me to comprehend that I've even been alive for this long, 
that I've had so much fun, sorrow, love, hate...
that I've had so many thoughts, feelings, experiences.
When I'm told something from the past it's almost like I never was there, akin to being in third person.
It's scary that I'm already feeling this way. I have so much more to see. But I think it's part of life.
We never are prepared for anything that's going to come. 
I need to write more. I've been trying to journal recently.
Not much, just at the end of the day before I fall asleep, I write down a couple sentences, reflect on the day as much as I can remember, sort of like a memory exercise.
If anything would be able to help, this is it.
And if not, then it is what it is.




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Around the age of 14, I was lonely.
As I've grown up, I've come to realize the pieces that together painted quite the bleak picture of my teen years.
I was not allowed to attend my classes in person,
(being in a hybrid homeschool/traditional school system allowed for this),
my parents made every effort to enact absolute control over who their children spent time with,
and I hadn't quite grown into the social skills that I possess today.
So, all in all, I was lonely.
Around the age of 14 was the time that the air in my home grew thicker.
Years of pain and troubles from my parents' past and growing tension in more recent years blossomed into our home,
suffocating the last bit of joy that remained.
It was around this time that more siblings entered my life,
They decided to adopt more brothers and sisters, and I found myself sharing my room with two younger boys that I hadn't grown up with.
I learned to love them over time, and today I can say that I love them as brothers.
But that sort of thing is only possible with time.
I tell you these things to explain some of the surrounding circumstances leading to the one and only time I have found myself in the back of a police car.
Around the age of 14, I was growing into my own personhood.
I loved to draw, and I loved music.
These two things were avenues to express the growing complex emotions that people usually feel around these developmental stages in their lives.
Yet it seemed that at every turn, the expressions I recorded and drew that swelled out of me were perceived as evil and dark,
to the point where I was no longer allowed to draw or pick up my guitar.
This on its own is minor, but it set the stage for the following years,
as I lost more and more of my privacy, being painted by my parents as a risk and an example of a failure.
Eventually retreating to the relative comforts of the mind as an escape was all I had left.
And with the stress, constant monitoring in every room and space with cameras, vile words and actions pressed into me by my mother, I was slowly being strangled.
Around the age of 15, I was out of options.
I needed to get out, as my existence at that point had grown into one of constant pain with no recourse.
So I decided to try and get out.
Looking back on this, it was foolish,
even if I had succeeded, I would've moved from a life of pain and constant anguish to one with no hope for a future.
I decided that I couldn't take any more, and on that cold winter day, the snow had begun to fall.
I gathered what little I could fit into my backpack,
in the kitchen, I prepared a turkey sandwich with mustard, sealing it into a bag.
I grabbed a fruit cake mix from the fridge that we kept in our garage.
I packed some clothing, my journal, various knick knacks from my room, and a few pens and pencils from a closet upstairs.
I went out to our shed, and discovered that my bike's front tire had been flat for some time.
However, my sister's bike,
(very similar to mine),
did not have the same issue.
So I decided that I would take hers, leaving mine for her to use in the future.
I rode off, trying to make my way to a friends' house, where about a year prior,
(the last time I was allowed to talk to him),
he had told me I could hide out in his family's greenhouse for a time.
Again, foolish.
But at this point I had run out of rationality.
I needed to get out.
I lost my way while biking.
I've never been very good with directions.
I found myself wandering neighborhood streets in the cold, with the snow and wind gently beating at my bones.
In my rush to collect my things, I had forgotten a snowcap; and it was a cold day.
I decided to pull out a pair of boxers and wear them on my head as a measly, ineffective deterrent for the chill.
I made my way to a main road, passing by a 7/11.
And this is where I was discovered by a police officer.
Apparently, my father had discovered me leaving on the camera system after calling for me in the house and not being able to find me.
I was told to get off my bike and sit in the back of the police car.
It was warm, and I found it strange that the rear seats were made of plastic.
As I sat in the back of that car, I saw my family pull up behind in their large black SUV.
It was time to go back.
Around the age of 15, after being brought back into my home, I was ostracized from my family.
The second I stepped back into the car,
choking with sobs and still feeling the chill of the winter day,
I was no longer seen as a son,
but as an all but welcome guest.
I resigned myself to my meager life,
being moved out of my room and into a guest room,
left with a bible and my thoughts.
For a time, I would not be allowed to eat with the family, see anyone outside the home, or have anything that would give me relief,
being forced to slave away from sunrise to sunset.
My siblings were told that I was dangerous, and that if they weren't careful, they'd end up like me.
Eventually I would be allowed to move back into my room, on a strict probationary period until things evened out.
I would repeat this painful experience in different ways two more times,
lashing out at the people around me in an attempt to gain some sense of hope, a connection to someone, or to relieve the growing, festering pain in my mind.
The only 'true' escape came when I grew old enough to leave,
and even then, it would take around 6 years before I fully escaped that home,
growing into myself and building relationships with people that I had to learn how to trust.
Around the age of 23, I nearly became whole again.




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I once cracked a kids head open with a rock when I was little.