I really want to run away.
I just need to get away from the person I used to be and the life she led.

I chopped off all my hair,
Changed my name,
Changed my wardrobe,
But I can't change the towns she came from and the parents she was raised by.

I just need to restart.

I could get a job at the McDonalds down the road and stop covering up my insecurities with drugstore concealer.

I could move in to the small town my grandparents live in in Georgia.
The one with the little cave and cozy antique stores.
All the people who own the antique stores know me;
The one who collects old photos and hats.

I could move to Tennessee like I've always wanted and start a punk band.
I can be the weird bassist with big hair and a threatening stage name.

I could pack up my favorite books and my instruments and live in a van, with little charms and witchy things hanging from the rear view mirror.

I could get a girlfriend and uhaul it into her house to hide out the rest of my youth.

I could sell all my collector's items on Ebay and blow it all on opening up a music store to run with my future wife, where I can stand on the tables and dramatically play violin for the regulars.

Or I could be normal and start looking for scholarships. But where's the fun in that?

I don't dislike my past.
It's just I've never felt like me.

I would always lie and say pink was my favorite color to fit in with the other girls.
I even painted my room pink.
Once I felt guilty enough, I painted it gray and blue, which are colors I actually like.

I never liked my old name.
As someone with synesthesia, it was a pink name with too many syllables for my liking.
It's also who I used to be before things fell apart.
I needed a new start and a name that made me happy as I question my gender.

I had my first existential crisis when I was six.
I dissociate a lot.
I depersonalize.
I'm not who I was.

Before I changed, I was so unhappy with myself that I wouldn't let people take photos of me.
I didn't want someone I hated to be documented as me.

I restarted, but I don't think I'll ever be done restarting.
I always am chasing some new fantasy and living in my head.