Four years ago I was 17. Seven. A teenager who wanted to get away. My parents got picked up for drugs, my sisters and I were crowded into the backseat of a police car and sent to foster homes. They separated us. I fought. I finally had myself emancipated, sleeping in the mission, dumpster diving for food, dodging cops.

I met him on the seventh of May. It was love at first sight. I stayed with him. He took me to the lake. I was free. But something was wrong. When he wasn’t around I would take his lighter and play with fire. I would go fishing with him just to watch the fish flop in the boat and die. I enjoyed cutting the worms up with my fingernails, ripping them into writhing pieces and spearing them on a hook.

He thought the calm of the lake and fishing would tame me. But I found the rugged life was good for hiding. When we left the lake, he tried to civilize me, to shake my desires to maim or burn. But I always escaped back to the lake.

One night, he hit me. Like my father had. Anger clouded my vision.