I’m not going to miss anything about this place. Its yellow grass, prickly plants, beating sun. There’s nothing here that I will genuinely miss and I don’t know how I feel about that. Everything here is brown—not a casual, descent brown. It’s a murky, ***** brown that has become the representation of everything I detest. The weather disgusts me and the people are even worse. The sun has become an enemy and whenever it comes out, I want to die. When I think of Arizona, of my hometown, I think of depression and my weight issues and my disgust with my body and who I am. When I think back on the houses and apartments I’ve lived In or the schools I’ve attended, I can’t help but fall into silent, stinging tears because it’s all been everything I’ve never wanted. I think of my first grade and I get angry because I didn’t ask for my anxiety. I remember all the soccer games I played and I realize that I never wanted to feel ‘big’ in my own body. And when I talk about all the empty tea mugs and bottles of health drinks lying around my room and in desk drawers, I always come back to the lighters and ash that have littered my very core. I’m not going to miss this place because all I’ve gotten out of it is sleepless nights and shedding skin. Summers were never my element and every day I continue living under the canopy of despondency, is one more summer I have to face. I’m a burning building. And Colorado is the only thing that will put me out. I don’t understand why people correlate fire with self power because whenever I think of fire, I think of the hunger that the flames feel. The hunger for something more than what they are already getting. So maybe I’m just the fire. Not the building. My hunger lies within every atom of my being because I need more than what I’m getting. If my life is only made up the ***** brown of the Arizona buildings or of the first grades and soccer games, then I don’t want to live anymore. Somewhere inside me, though, there is a hope –a very small piece, but hope nonetheless –that my life hasn’t entirely begun yet and I’m just going through the rituals of some sick god. But still my vision keeps getting clouded by yellow grass and burnt out cigarettes. And my hope gets buried again.