I sit on a grey leather seat and I have been seated for over four hours. I roll down my window and Tennessee air hits me, unlike New Jersey air. We are close to the campsite we have been driving to for weeks. My hair whips around my face but I still keep it long because it covers my ears and I like how it looks.

I dig my toes into the Hawaiian sand, careful not to get my jeans wet on the clear blue water. I see the shadow of another island just a skip across the water. Behind me, rain clouds threaten to pour on a sunny day. I feel my skin heating up and I brace for the sun burn.

I step into the station and see the brick wall. Fifty people are lined up, ready to get their picture taken at Platform 9 ¾ in King’s Cross station. I adjust my skirt and Gryffindor tie, step forwards, and become the caboose of the line.

I keep my feet firmly on the floor and hope the plane stays firmly in the air. My best friend unties her sneakers and crosses her legs next to me as we soar over the Atlantic Ocean. “The Grand Budapest Hotel?” she asks. I agree. We watch it, we enjoy it, we land in Lisbon.

I slide into an open doorway. Eight fireproof tables are bolted to the floor and four chairs each adorn the sides of the tables. “Finally,” a woman at the front of the room says to a group of ten high schoolers. “She’s here.” She claps her hands together: “Today: lemons on a brass bowl.”

My background is a smorgasbord of silly words and sceneries. My identity is identified by what I have seen and who I have met. I am interested in being interesting, in getting my ideas across in short, accurate spurts. My talent is admiring other places, other people. I sketch my ideas with my logos, colour them with my ethos, and shade them with my pathos.

I was never one for transitions because it is easier to say what I want before leading into it.

I was never one for essays because I do not want to explain what I believe when I can give the feelings of it instead.

I do not have a background, no. I have a montage of memories, a symphony of subconsciousness, a patchwork of my past in my head that tends to leak out of my mouth at a constant rate as carbon dioxide rushes free of my lungs and I hope the world is ready.