First, try to put together all the precious pieces of words together. Create a collaboration until they form your face. Your entire body. Cry yourself to sleep. It is best that you vent in the first few stages – before your emotions breathe in all your entrails. This is important and necessary so that eventually you can better lead yourself to find the deeper meaning behind your fears and wants. Maybe a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, a painter who is afraid expresses the words you cannot bear to drain from your pencil. Count the number of times you used “I.” Look into the mirror and say it to yourself. It all sounds like a mask of lies and you cannot seem to find yourself. Show it to the homeless drug addict who begs at the corner of the block. He takes no interest and sees it as something unimportant. He has five cats with HIV and a slice of a cardboard box that reads, “Why Lie? I Want A Beer.” He believes in self-sufficiency and wears a quilt that he knitted from scarves left behind. He’ll gaze at his cats, then at you, with his eyes white from the blood he has drained from his life. He’ll say: “Why don’t you bother someone else about this?” You turn your back toward him. Shove the crumpled piece of paper in Oscar the Grouch’s face. Accidentally poke his eye with your pencil. This is when you realize that everything you touch you destroy. You have yet to lose your will to fly.

In preschool, the only thing that scares you is Ms. Conley’s face. As a youngster in a world filled with so many people, names become confusing. The only way you can really decide whether or not that person is your friend or foe is by their face. However, this does not go only for you, but also for others. A name is one thing that differentiates you from others, an identification, for someone to classify you. It is given to you at birth, and forever yours. How you spell it, how you pronounce it, its origins are all what define you. You are told these things not by choice, but by someone deciding for you. The first thing they teach you is the alphabet. Since you’re born and a raised in the U.S.A, it is most likely the English alphabet. But what happens if you have a name that is not in English? Sadly, if not recognized, it is translated without consideration. A name may have the same meaning, but there are spelling variations. You grab all the markers in sight, and draw a picture of rainbows, and flowers, and smiley faces. You write your name at the upper right hand corner so that everybody knows it is yours. Proud as a peach, you show it to your mom. She looks disappointed. When she gives it back to you, you realize that she has written on it, with a huge “X” over your name: “Your image is quite nice, but you spelled your name wrong.” How can you possibly spell your own name wrong? Is there a right way to spell a name? According to the Spanish-speaking world, there is. When you are home, and everybody else is busy, you lightly write under the huge “X”, in a black sharpie: “Gabí Pond.”

You take a job as a student counselor in an after-school program at your elementary school. You love children and they love you. They want to be like you. They worship you. You tell them your name and they melt into an idiocy of Disney and Disney Channel bliss: You play baby rhymes on the piano like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, which is nowhere near their favorite. And when they get the chance, they turn on the radio and singalong to Hannah Montana. While they are occupied in their hypnotic fixations, you take the chance to go to the bathroom. Quickly go to the first stall closest to the door. There appears to be no one in the bathroom, but just as you’re about to use the toilet, you hear the familiar sounds of laughing and high-pitched voices. You try hard not to make any noise, in order to not call any attention whatsover. You suddenly hear someone kick the stall wall. You look up to see a hand clutching onto the top of the stall wall and a head pops up, wondering eyes looking down at you. You will want to pinch yourself to see if you are just having a bad dream. They will ask you if that was blood in the toilet. Explain, yes, it was, and you will promise to tell them a story if they will not ask any more questions about the blood in the toilet and that seems to work out just fine. “We promise,” they will exclaim.

Try to smile.

Apply to college as any major that does not involve children.