I know a boy named Jeff and

I feel an adamant need to prove to him that I am more than just DV tapes and snooze buttons and food with artificial coloring in it.

There are parts of me that want to tell him I have a reason for staring up at the clouds, and tell him what that reason is.

There are reasons---"good reasons"---why I'm phallophobic, why I'm not as open as he thinks I should be, and why people with kids underfoot make me grumpy.

But I don't tell him. Because he would have no reaction. Because it would not matter to him, and it means all the world to me. There is nothing I can do that would affect him, that would draw the kind of response I desire from him.

I feel like he could never understand why I so love the pocket knife that I used to slit my wrist.