When the ocean came for me, I could see it rushing in from a long way off. My feet, clumsy and heavy, stood rooted to the tenuous ground they knew. I knew my demise would be by drowning, and I tried early to make my peace with the water, tilting my head back when it rained to taste the liquid and feel it running into my body, mingling with my cells, which I knew from biology were already three-fourths water. I hoped that I could soften the blow, warm up the frozenness of those far-off waves, I hoped that I could be prepared. Even back then, when I was so much younger, I was apart from the world with my knowledge. They asked why I didn't apply myself, why couldn't I be more sociable.

My mother says that everything I do in life is for dramatic effect; she warns me that the world doesn't like a faker; she tries to prepare me for this hard, prosaic world by espousing hard work and honesty. She thinks I should take more AP classes, get more summer internships, work harder, fulfill my potential. I wonder if adults see potential always where there is only an unwelcomed bitterness, cynical and farsighted, something that looks like Intelligence or Talent Gone Astray. In a few days, my mom will find out that I ended up in this place, no matter what my efforts are to hide it. When I came in, they asked if I wanted them to tell any family members that I was here. It seemed like too much bother, too much work. I can see all the conversations already, I have this farsightedness in me, like anticipation. The air moves and I can already feel the blow, is all.

The walls in this room are smooth and white, the lighting flourescent and sterile. There is a plastic potted plant in the corner, its leaves thick with dust. The floor is smooth and tiled; it reminds me of high school, that institutional white, with those flecks of gray so the dirt doesn't show up as much. They let me in through their extra-wide door, and they didn't even lock it behind them. It locks every time it shuts. I'm waiting here; an intake worker is supposed to come and tell me my sentence, scribble wisely on their notepad about my flatness of affect. I am glad that waiting is one of my talents.

I didn't mean to end up here, in this hospital in a strange town where I was only supposed to go to school, then scurry home every break like a good daughter. Between my bitterness and my cutting and the way the horizon got flatter and flatter, I knew the drowning was closer. But I made a good effort, I intended to do all of my homework, I went to classes when I could breathe, I even took a few notes. I smiled at people when they said hello. I tried, but I get the feeling that anything I did could only delay this imprisonment, or circumvent it with death.

But if I killed myself, I just couldn't take what my mother would say. They say I'm a danger to myself. She would tell me I'm faking it again. I guess you'd think my logic was twisted, because if I was dead I wouldn't hear what anyone had to say. I'm not so sure my mother couldn't reach me to criticize even beyond the grave.

There's nothing in this room for my eyes to rest on; the walls are white and slippery and the floor has no good pattern, and no interesting randomness either. I say waiting is a talent of mine because I am a very experienced daydreamer. You might even say I am a professional. It's a way to get accustomed to the water, like I was talking about. A way to swallow the rain so the ocean won't be so unfamiliar. Slipping away to a vivid daydream must be a lot like having hallucinations. I'm so good at it I can't be aware of the real world around me at all, not even if I tried.

This room is so slippery and sterile, I don't even need to close my eyes. I do anyway. I'm so fucking tired.