I never found myself in a pink aisle. There was no box for me with glossy cellophane like heat and a neat packet of instructions in six languages.
Evenings, I watched TV like a religion I moderately believed. I watched to see how the others lived, not knowing I was the other - no laugh track in my living room, no tidy and punctual resolution waiting.
I took tests in which Jane & William had so many apples.
I fasted through birthday parties and Christmas parties and ate leftover tajine at plastic lunch tables, picked at pepperoni from slices like blemishes and tried not to complain.
I prayed at the wrong times in the wrong tongue. I hungered for Jell-O & Starburts & margarine; could read mono- and diglycerides by five, knew what gelatin meant, and where it came from. "