when i was a kid,
people called me "passionate"
because of how much i talked
about the things i loved.
i would create complicated stories
inside my mind,
where i would win total drama
or the hunger games.
i would tell my mom
that i was going to marry harry styles
when i was 14, and i believed it
she would laugh and tell me that i was
"one of a kind".
when i was eleven,
i listened to the lemonade mouth soundtrack
each and every night until it broke
then, i would cry instead.
when i was in 7th grade,
my best friend came out to me
i didn't know much about being trans,
but i went home and obsessively researched
so i could understand them.
at age 16, my grandmother told me
she thought that i was crazy,
and that i couldn't separate
fiction from reality.
as i grew,
my interests stopped being
perceived as "passion"
and more as "obsession".
i have had more than twenty
instagram accounts,
because my interests come and go
like the sea.
at 19, i became acutely aware of
what others think is
"wrong with me"
and, since then, it's all i think about.
now i'm turning 21
and i hate this part of myself
"too passionate";
"not passionate enough".
thinking about all of the wrong things.
