I Wrote Back the Book That My Mother Burned

When I was fourteen, my mother said, if you don't do your homework, I will burn your books. I didn't wait for her to make a move. I piled all the homework on the kitchen floor, poured oil on it, and lit it myself. When the flames started, she was chopping vegetables nearby. The knife chopped on the cutting board, thump, thump, thump. Didn't stop him, didn't scold him, didn't even look at him. That was the first time I spoke with fire. Later, the whole class took advantage of my absence to sign a petition asking me to get out of the experimental class. Later, the girl I liked cried in the snow and said, "My heart loves you, but my reason forces me not to love you." Later, I carried a fake camera on the street to defraud my parents out of money, and was owed wages by my boss. I was hit by an old lady and accused of a hit-and-run. Every time I tried to speak, someone told me: It's your fault. Until I opened a blank document and typed the first line. I wrote all of the first half of my life - burning homework books, being punished to stand and count tiles, and not being able to scrape a single dollar at the bus stop. It's not to be miserable, but to bring back the fourteen-year-old self who was holding a fire in the kitchen bit by bit. If you are also going through something difficult, maybe this book can accompany you for a while.