text: I tried to force a smile, glancing her way to see her reaction. It was fear. Subtly enough displayed, as she was trying to continue leading the swing dancing class. But for a split second, she had the look of pure fear. The kind of fear you feel when you realize that the person in front of you has either has no shred of human empathy or just does not care, and will tear you into pieces without a second thought using the box cutter in his hand. All I did was ask a question. About what she should do with our hands after she turns. But she felt I was off. She knew something was up. She knew something was up from the moment I walked in, kindly letting the class know that nobody had to dance with somebody they were not comfortable with. I took off my sweater as I was starting to sweat. “Now, there are also INSIDE turns, which are just like you imagine,” she said. “[... something something something, something something something...].” I was too whirling(?) to pay attention and the details of what she said don’t matter for this story anyway. I slipped the box cutter out of my back pocket. Soon enough, large cracks began forming in the ceiling. The floor began shaking and the walls began breaking. People started sliding, begging for their pathetic lives, complaining that the free popcorn was making their pathetic stomaches aching. Now was my chance. I dashed right through the crowd, right to the unopened box. Opened the box to reveal a chocolate cherry cheesecake. Used the box cutter to cut myself a slice. Got some cake on my hands because box cutters are short. Why does my mere existence cause people to tremble in fear? To cause the life to vanish from their eyes, to resemble those of my own? To lose the warmth from their bodies, resemble the coldness of myself? Because I am awkward, and terrible things follow me everywhere. Because I am hungry, and wanted some cheesecake. Because I live life as a truth but believe in a lie, and I’m paranoid of the things people want me to try. Because I’m as degenerate as the stories I write. Because I’m addicted to rhyming, but I can’t even do that right.