Emma is a mattress who got thrown off the truck when her parents split up. It's not like you can blame a mattress when people don't tie it down tight enough.

I cry to let everything out

A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.

Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.

Melancholy held me hostage, and the bees built a hive of sadness in my soul.

I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.

They say they have noticed me drawing. I almost tell them right then and there. They noticed.