“I most always smile out of spite. I sometimes stay alive out of spite.”

• 001.     THE INTANGIBLE CONCEPT — you are in the second generation of witchy women in your family. you’re not meant to misuse, you’re meant to give back, your mother tells you. nature loves you but nature holds grudges, your mother tells you. you are not you but we, your mother tells you. you will not heed her advice. age six, you learn how to make the tea boil in seconds just by whistling, even if you know that it’s not necessary. age ten, you make the kids who say bad words to you trip on their way up the stairs, leaving them with bloody noses and mouthfuls of curses. age sixteen, you fall in love with a girl who loves you like she’s going to lose you, who makes you forget why your parents crossed continents and why your blood sings a song of violence and why you stand unflinching in the eye of loss. you and your friends get into bad things when you start to get old enough for people to notice you. their eyes always go to you first. you and your dark eyes. you and the furrow in your brow. you and your lesson in awakening. you adopt another stray emotionally compromised teenager into your friend group and she tells you breathlessly, reverently that you’re the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. and it makes you mad, but maybe not at her, because you can recognize the good and bad people like a lie detector that’s seen too much and knows in details what a long night is because they’re all you have. you’re powerful in a way that they don’t seem to understand and maybe, you will take a lesson your mother. you’re powerful and you won’t let them see.

“So it is down to this: who waits, who goes on with it, / who walks forward into shadow without looking back.”

• doesn’t like to wear shoes
• always has a piece of sugarfree gum in their mouth
• has a collection of cartoon dvds
• walks everywhere they go
• only wears pastel colors
• won’t go anywhere without three hairbands on their wrist
• refuses to wear any shoes except red converse
• has a crippling fear of something mundane like mushrooms
• has a dream notebook filled with every dream they can remember
• has a really loud sneeze and goes into sneeze fits
• only wears vintage clothing
• has damaged hair from messing with it too much
• super good at advanced math but can’t do addition for shit
• believes in the supernatural, like ghosts
• likes to go on midnight shopping trips and run through stores
• gets too emotionally attached
• loves dogs and has three of them
• has hallucinations, but not scary ones
• works at a fast food establishment in their free time
• always carries a musical instrument with them
• always carries a sketchbook with them
• likes to name inanimate objects
• strictly against drug use
• excessively polite
• excessively indecisive
• can recite the first 200 digits of pi
• can only play clocks by coldplay on the piano and plays it 24/7
• gets itchy skin when anxious
• has to move things around in a certain pattern before going to sleep
• worries that if they do one thing wrong they’ll die
• obsessed with puzzles
• obsessed with rpg videogames
• texts with one thumb
• always has red painted nails
• an amazing runner with super toned legs
• has a beautiful voice
• has restless legs, especially at night
• has terrible performance anxiety
• doesn’t like to turn assignments in because they’re afraid they’ll fail
• loves science but is really bad at it
• can/can’t make friends easily
• likes to lie in fields and stare at the stars
• believes that wishes can come true
• falls deeply in love
• bruises super easily
• beautiful/horrible handwriting
• ambidextrous
• only likes nintendo games
• only drinks sparkling water
• doesn’t watch tv/listen to music
• goes to concerts every week
• likes slam poetry
• likes to study in coffee shops/libraries
• doesn’t understand politics but tries nonetheless
• wears the same sweatshirt every day
• collects sweatshirts
• works three part time jobs
• crazy intelligent but super shy
• likes to memorize phone numbers instead of writing them down
• loves to calculate probability
• gets homesick very easily
• wants to leave home very badly
• trips a lot
• can’t dance but tries anyway
• brushes their teeth seven times a day
• incredibly honest to a sometimes brash extent
• only draws with mechanical pencils
• only writes with pens
• collects pens from hotels
• wants to believe in heaven but can’t
• watches a ton of anime
• makes people cute nicknames
• makes people origami
• uses origami as a coping mechanism
• owns a ton of t-shirts from hot topic, but has never been inside
• makes all their own food
• vegetarian/vegan/pescatarian
• eats rice krispies every morning
• does everything “for the aesthetic”
• watches kids shows
• goes to a private school
• short term memory loss
• loves disney movies
• makes lists of random things in their free time
• only eats foods with a spoon
• only likes to wear skirts
• never has their hair down
• dyes their hair every two weeks
• likes to collect pokemon cards
• gets obsessed with games really easily
• gives up too easily
• gets their heart broken too often
• has a mysterious disease
• has a big social media following
• tries too hard to be popular
• likes to draw everything and everyone
• can eat a whole lemon
• listens to “edgy” music all the time