There is no sky this winter and not a single leaf clinging to a single twig. The icy wind burns through my gloves and my fingers ache until they fall numb and silent. I cannot find anything to read. I wander through the shelves of the library, and take piles of books with me, but each one disappoints after fifty pages and I let it drop to the floor. After school, I take naps in my bed and at dinnertime get up without fixing the sheets again. By then the sun is already setting, and there is nothing to do but eat and get through as much homework as I must before going to bed. I know that I should stop sleeping through the afternoons; I’ve started waking an hour or more before my alarm, and I lay awake in the dark and watch my window go from black to gray. That’s when I think about things that I never let myself think about during the day. At school, I am exhausted from my early waking, and by last period, I have a terrible struggle to stay awake.
