Second grade I met my vampire teacher (left, smiling). His last name was Hunger. He taught me how to count in cubes and told me I could never catch him in a photograph. I believed him, every word that parted his lips. After school, we waited for my mother in an empty parking lot. I cried telling him I’d lost my owls. I was scared of cars that shouted in the night. In the photo I see his teeth, my pale smile.

Back then, I had therapy. My father, younger, less patient, tough grip, walked me to a donut shop. Walking again, to a building with drooping black windows, I imagined I entered the keep of Lord Clockwork and his Mechanical Minions. 

In the therapist’s office, I could take off my antlers and wrap myself into a leather chair. Our ritual was rehearsed. She’d ask me questions. I’d mumble, organize dinosaurs along my armrests, pretend I wasn’t interested in what she wrote on her clipboard. I turned my head downwards. Averted eyes forgot the contours of her face quickly. The name followed, seeping out my ears in the night. 

I was charted development, body made statistic, exsanguinated by paper forms. I was tortured by finding books about the Problem Child, knowing it was me outlined by the words inside. But in the snapshot I knew how to smile, a talent I learned to lose.

I moved into my own room, buried roadkill in my patio, read until I saw stars twist under my eyes. I learned to ride a bike. I outgrew scream-crying, getting locked in the bathroom to eat Tums.I started writing with a Mother’s Day poem. Hushed scribbles in the back of the classroom, a smeared page imagining a mushroom garden clearing, a fairy with a toadstool cap named Gerard. 

But I still found it hard to envision myself as anything other than a copy of my parents. Shifted through three schools, I accelerated through middle-school math and science, devouring quantum mechanics books. I earned Math Excellence, the Shakespeare Award, references for high schools. I found myself incompatible, smart but stumbling. I wanted to write, but I didn’t know where.

Now, I look through my mirror and see my own vampire on the other side, canines chipped. My hair, wine-dark, reaches my chin now. I glower. I am mistaken for a poet when I glower. I submit to literary journals; I keep a little black book in my pocket. I am a stranger to the boy in the picture, an alien to myself. Who is the man in the photo?

 But looking at my own black irises, I remember bits of my mind are immutable. I had a horrible memory then. Lost in myself, I left cold dinners behind in favor of my sketchbooks. I wandered from parents and stared through nothing, trying to pierce the veil of worlds I didn’t know. I have a horrible memory now; my hands are smudged with ink from forgotten messages, and I am forever running backwards. I trace the whorls of my brain, looking for some beginning to my thoughts. I only try to remember what was dream and what was memory. 

I am surprised by my age, my appearance. I am asked on the train what college year I am in. But there are still parts of me from the photograph. I observe. I wonder. I never look for cars crossing the street. I like listening to dopey romantic music. I sleep with only one pillow. I am still scared of the dark, afraid of what is ahead. All I’ve done is find my words.