<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fire tower is my favorite place in Hathian; especially at night. Like a wraith in sweats and socked feet I slip out under the moonlight, walking the slanted scaffolding walkways to the top, and I’m just tall enough, if I jump I can catch the lip and pull myself up onto the roof - and it is there that this hell I call home, is transformed into something beautiful.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-ca3a5364-7fff-bb08-795a-f88a1342081e" style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can feel the wind up there, tearing through my hair, swirling around me, tugging at my clothes, making my eyes tear. The sparkling water in the distance, the candy-coated colors of the ferris wheel turning under the stars. It is here that all the noise of the city becomes distant, where my thoughts finally have room to spread out, unravel, meander and eventually, become still.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there is so much on my mind lately.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shi… she, my Shi, she is back. Like a memory you’ve almost forgotten. My ruby-eyed darling… and I am in upheaval.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am bombarded by memories of being seventeen, sunburned, perpetually barefoot and incandescently happy, unblemished and wild. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that isn’t how it is now. I am not seventeen, and I know better. But it is so hard to resist my natural impulses.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"> </b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love so easily. Fast, hard. I run at life with my heart wide open and I love that about myself.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Spectral,serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I hate that about myself. When it hurts.</span></p>