I knew right then and there nothing was ever going to change. It wouldn't matter if I was tall or short or fat or thin or absent every day. I was a loser from birth.

I had to fight so hard not to cry.

What I know is you can't go back. You can't press delete and re-key your life.

Your failures and your faults, they stick with you. They glob into ugly, cancerous growths inside you and make you want to die.

Sometimes I'd catch myself looking at my reflection in windows and wonder who I was. Where I was going. Then the image would change and it wouldn't be me, just some nebulous shadow person.

They didn't guarantee you'd come out a whole person.

His invitation lingers. So does my question. Why me? I don't know the answer. When I look at myself in the mirror, all I see is a starving, stunted bird who never grew wings and lost all reason to sing.