I am from away away in the corner where the lights too dim to see. All roads come to an end, a pit in the shape of the world. You’ll find me there locked away in their windowless office playing cards with a fat man who calls himself my friend. I answered their questions on a simple quiz that does not count for anything except another weight to drop on my heart.

Where I’m from it’s so loud I’d scream for silence if only that would not add to the noise. I slap on my head phones to drown them in song. Green Dayz fill my head with Nirvana and that creepy guy in white make-up who sings of misery with one quivering glass eye and white contacts. Oh, absolve me from the screaming. Take me to a better place.

Where I’m from nouns and verbs dance a foolish festival. Tell me what’s two plus two and does that equal five? Combine this ball with this dog. What sentence can you make? Hold our pencil like we do. You’re not right, don’t think that you are right. What are you, stupid? They ask me over and over until I can’t help but slip away.

They don’t know me there. When ‘daddy’ psychotherapy drags me away from my classes to his special room I’m more gone than they’ll ever know. I run to a place where dragons replace planes in a clearer sky where the sun shines on a greener pasture. It’s a better place.

It’s a vampires den and a mermaid’s song. It’s on a space ship or in the valley of a dinosaurs big toe print. I am from a better place only I can reach. And while I’m there I’m who I want to be – not an ugly girl, not a sorry girl.

There is another place where playgrounds are battle grounds and children carry rifles in their back pocket. Jungle gyms are made of barbed wire and you’d better beware of land mines when jumping off a swing. Tic-tack-toe, three in a row, don’t be shot by a GI-Joe. Kids will hunt the strange ones, make them trip at that fatal moment and corner them at their weakest. So as the starting bell shrieked at noon each day I ran to the sand box with all my strength to dig a hole too deep for the hunters to decend. And at the bottom I’d open my secrete door and smile at the blue centaur with the hook on his tail who smiled back only with his eyes. We would play all day with Jeremy Thatcher the Dragon Hatcher. Then run to the sea to swim with the whale prince, who showed me wonders your eyes may never reach.

But before we had our fun I’d always run back to my door – shut it and lock it tight. No one can ever know, I proclaimed to myself. Then one day I got a little lonely, and I got a little braver. So I left my door open for new friends who might come passing by.

Turn the pages, come into my world. With a stroke of the keys that go rap-a-tap-tap I come to life for you. Bring you to life for me. I am from ink blots and pictures scribbled in the sand and words splashed across a page like a great tsunami of thought.

I am from Mars, won’t you come visit?