All my life I feel as though I have been laughing through the blood splatter. Nobody ever wants to talk about anything significant anymore. When I try to talk about things that matter, people look at me as though I am some strange specimen. People like you better when you have a smile plastered across your face and you babble on about nonsense. Sure, they call you ditzy, but they prefer you when you take an utter fascination in nothing.

I don’t feel as though I am the same species as other people. Beneath my sparkling exterior, I spend a lot of time watching people. So I am quite skilled at not just acting like them, but really excelling in my role as a human girl. Now you’re getting a little scared. Is she telling us she’s a sociopath? Slow down. I have a world of empathy and a deep well of compassion in my strange little heart. I don’t ever kill spiders. I transfer crickets into cups and carry them outside. This is no Ted Bundy confession. If anything, I’m just a robot. Good thing technology is making such stunning advancement, because soon I might have someone electronic to share my points of view with.

But really, if anything, I am an alien. (Aren’t all artists?) I tried to describe this phenomenon to someone I dated once. I told him about how I watched the other women at the office and internally referred to them as “hens.” They would walk around in their high heels and heavy jewelry and clack on about nothing. I watched them with a singular fascination, not judging. Just marveling. Sure, I could have cut into their conversation. I have razor-honed my giggle up to the perfect octave, and there was plenty of nonsense I could have delved into. Surely they wouldn’t have smelled the imposter. But I wouldn’t have felt any of what I was saying.

Naturally, the man I told didn’t understand what I was trying to say. And it’s no surprise that when we parted ways, he found his way over to a hen of his own. I think it’s better that way. Yeah, he was a lot older than me, but he didn’t need my strange mind corrupting his views on life. And really there’s nothing wrong with that. I admire people who stick to their routines and don’t seek out the cracks. However, the cracks are all that catches my eye, and I can’t help but move closer so that I can look inside. I want to see the innards, the vital organs throbbing, the guts slowly churning as inchoate parts carefully bloom. I will look and record it for you if you are afraid to peer inside. It’s okay for the hens to clack around and close their eyes. Here I am, and I am watching.

I used to work for a company that had a magazine as one of their publications. I was the style editor, and they would assign the most banal stories to me. They would ask me to write about revolutionary things such as how to make yourself look thinner for the summer. So you know what I would do? I would write a story about embracing your body and dressing for your shape. That’s the kind of perspective I bring to the party. I’m grateful I’m no longer a hen, like I once was way before all the things I experienced altered me.

Notice I didn’t say “break,” because I am still intact. I’m just not the same species anymore. It’s more like a lot of really heavy things got chucked at me, continually. Am I cracked? No. Dented? Sure, why not. But you have to be dented in order to understand. There’s no way around it. So I’m glad for all the things that got thrown at my head. Because even if I am a strange species, my capacity to see has incomprehensibly expanded. I don’t want to go back to being blind.

That’s the value I bring to the table. I don’t see things the same way as most people. I have been to hell, and it does not frighten me. Even more importantly, it did not defeat me. There is nothing I am afraid to conquer, because I have been forced into countless nightmares and every time I have persevered. (A pretty neat parlor trick if you ask me.) I can giggle and smile and play the role that you ask of me, because I know that I am capable. More than that. Infrangible.

But most importantly, I am not afraid to tell my story. To tell your story. All the people who this world has silenced. I know that your cries are being drowned out by the noise. But people, like me, notice you. Let us tell your story if you cannot. Or let them judge me for mine if you are afraid to admit what happened. Pin it all on me. Just know that you’re not alone.

A line that repeats itself in my poetry goes along the lines of this: “the man on the other end laughs. Because what else can you do?” This stems back to when I was filing a protective order after I reported an assault, and I was asked “did he choke you?” and I replied “not this time.” I think about that all the time, the moment when the man on the other end of the line and I laughed together after I said that. Because what else can you do, honestly?

In truth, that is a brilliant and rare gift. The ability to laugh through the blood splatter. It’s how you know that you’re not just going to survive, but you’re going to come back for whoever is still buried. And guess what? I’m coming back. I promise I have not forgotten. This is why I am uniquely qualified. This is why I am a writer.