#201

THIS ONE’S FOR a boy I’ve chosen not to name. The anonymous student annoys me to the core, but I can’t get him off my mind (and neither can you, judging by the fact that you’re reading this). He strives for perfection when he knows he’ll never get there, climbing and fighting but never reaching the top—never even seeing it. This obsession destroys him. His friends are gone, his family’s more dysfunctional than they are in those cringey television dramas, and now he has no clue how to escape the deep hole he’s dug himself into.

Sometimes I look at him and think, My god, what a mess. He’s got nothing to live for. He keeps going and he has no idea why.

Moon.