I know a lot of things.
I know when my razor blades are getting dull.
I know how to snap my razor blades and remove the small silver rectangles without cutting my thumb.
Well, not really. I’ve cut my thumb a lot.

Inside my head, there’s a sort of map. An instruction manual. The way I see things now, in a split second, I can process how I could take it apart. How I could find the sharp piece of it. Razor blades, pencil sharpeners. The most everyday, innocent objects being turned to weapons by my mind.

I do know a lot of things.
I know science.
I know how to get good grades.
Some people even say I’m one of those “genius” types. Of course, I don’t believe them.
It’s a bit too much of a stretch. For someone like me.

I know I’m smart. I’ve always known I was different. The way my mind works, the way I feel it processing everything in my head, that can’t be how everybody is. I see sentences, whole strings of words, fly through my mind, changing to edit themselves. My brain turned into a computer, choosing the best result to suit my purpose. But I have no control, not really.

I can see things. I can interpret. I notice how people act. I can tell things about them, at least I like to think I can. I’m just so glad nobody seems to notice me. It’s both good and bad, really. I like being on my own, just me and my mind. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish somebody would notice one of my scars out of the corner of their eye and ask what’s wrong. And not because they think I’m crazy, because they genuinely care. But I know how the world is. And I know how people are. So I stay quiet.

My whole life I’ve heard, “You’re so smart,” “You’re so pretty.”
But I’ve never been the smart one in the class. I’ve never had the boys and dates.

I just want people to understand. I want to know that there is someone out there that gets how I feel, how I think, how I see the world. Nobody understands the constant pain I feel in my chest. I don’t even understand it. I know all of these terrible things that have happened to me and all of these terrible things that have happened to people I love, and I don’t know how to handle all of the pain I can see. There is so much damage and I can’t fix everything.

I think, more than anything, I just want to know that I’m not alone.