I really hate tears. They’re stupid and unhygienic no matter what anyone says. I look weird when I cry. I shiver, my face goes slightly or maybe completely red, the whites of my eyes go bloodshot, and my eyelashes pull together so it looks like I have some triangles, like five, instead of hair. Yet, I always thought I looked pretty when I cried; pretty in a different way. I don’t cry like most people; mostly because I don’t want to cry. The tears make my eyes blurry but I shut them and push the dreaded drops back. Sometimes they overflow and I can’t help it.

I don’t usually cry when I get hurt, and when I do cry due to injury I criticize myself saying, “Don’t be a wimp. Toughen up!” In my head of course, otherwise people might think I’ve gone round the bend, not that I care. I cry when I’m frustrated. Though, I wipe away the salty things and feed the plants with them. Might as well make some use of them. I like to cry in dark places, not in front of people. I don’t usually cry about death. What’s the point of that when the person is probably walking the streets of heaven happy as a ringing Christmas bell? Of course I’ll miss them, but cry? Nuh-uh…

No one comforts me when I cry, at least not anything as human as me. I like it when the sky cries. It gets all good smelling and I love to watch the storm. It makes me feel at home. I used to dance in the rain, but now I’d never get away with it. I’m not childish enough to be tolerated, well I probably am inside, but outside I’m too old. I'm older than the grass in the backyard, but younger than the tree outside my window. I think I’ll go there now. I love my tree. Truth is it’s more of a decent parental figure than I’ve had. I think I’ll try to stay here. This foster home has trees that love me. I don’t care what the people do with me. People are people, and they all disappoint me. I don’t disappoint many people because they are warned not to hope before I meet them.

I’m in my tree now. All I had to do was swing off the roof on a long branch I found when I moved in to this place that holds my weight. I keep my most prized possession in this tree. It is a blue stone I found by a river long ago in a place I barely remember. It has beautiful swirling patterns and it always seems to be warm when I need it to be. I’d like to think it is a little gift from someone out there who cares enough to tell this life I’ve got now isn’t all I’ll ever have. There’s something out there. I’ll find it, I’m pretty bad at that but who cares. It will probably find me…