From the ages

of twelve to fifteen

I wore somewhere

between

twelve to fifteen bracelets

to cover the bandages

on my left wrist.

Luckily,

and unluckily, I suppose,

that was somewhat

fashionable

for that era.

I was a walking

‘Help Wanted’ poster,

hoping someone

would see beyond

the giggles and

hyperactive tendencies.

Looking back,

the public school system

requiring tetanus shots

is probably what

saved my life.

Sometime in college, I read somewhere that your personality is the average of the five people you spend the most time around. It stuck with me. I never questioned the correctness of the quote. In my book, it doesn’t have to be accurate to be true.

But here’s the thing—it’s completely true. And accurate.

We like to think of the human brain as a computer, but it’s actually way cooler. It’s a living thing and it’s constantly changing. We will never fully understand it, so we can never totally optimize it. I’m grateful for that. If you solve all the mysteries of the universe, romance dies.

Anyway. The brain has about 86 billion neurons, each one forming thousands of connections with its neighbors. This network is spontaneous order in its purest form, constantly modified by each moment of your life.

Every single experience and interaction you have changes the structure of your brain. You form new connections, and those connections break, adjust, and get rerouted. The aftershock of these changes can be felt all the way down to your DNA, the instruction manual for your entire existence.

When you meet someone new, your brain changes. You learn their name, their face, the things they like. You want to remember these things, and in doing so, they become a part of you. When you meet a person for coffee, or dinner, you are gifting them the world’s tiniest piece of your identity.

What a wake-up call. We’re a mix of the genes we’ve been dealt, but we are also the sum of the decisions we make.

Who have you decided to spend your life around?

When you fall,

I will lift you up,

When you cry,

I will wipe your tears,

Whatever your need,

I will provide,

Your smile

Is all I need in return.

Father used his fists

a lot

Though never on the kids

On the walls

and the furniture

and the doors

and the mailbox

and the fence

and the neighbors

and random people on the street

and strangers in the bar

and a few times the poor dog

and one time on mother

He was the childhood’s

villain

To defeat him one had

to become a hero

and becoming a hero

took time

And today

after all this time

the villain of childhood

was dead

He died at the hands of

some other character,

a neutral one

A cop who told him to

drop to the ground

and father didn’t

so he got shot

That was it

The end of his saga

Utterly unsatisfactory

anticlimactic

disappointing

just bad

There was no final showdown

between hero and villain

because those things

only happen in

childhood

and childhood had ended a

long time ago

“I fucking hate rice,” she

told me. “And I’m beginning

to kinda

hate you for loving it.”

“Shit,” I said, “what

did rice ever

do to you?”

She opened her purse

took out the pack of smokes

and fished one out

with her lips. “Fuck,” she said,

looking for the lighter.

“I think I still

have the pits in my knees…”

“What?”

She shrugged. “I was a little girl,

alright, and whenever I

did something that my dear grandma

considered naughty she’d

pour raw rice in a corner

of the room and make me kneel

on it and just stand like that for…

I don’t know, hours.”

“Really?”

“Really!” She blew the smoke

in my face. “To this day,

bitch still wonders

how I could steal her savings

from the pension. I didn’t

even need the money. I just hated

her guts is all. And now

I hate rice. And you.”

“Well,” I said. “I never stole

from my grandma. And to

this day I don’t hate walnuts.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that was my version

of the punishment. I knelt on

shells of walnuts just

like you with the rice. And I

don’t hate ’em.”

She blew more

smoke in

my face