Fish In A Tree

by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

No matter how many times I have prayed and worked and hoped, reading for me is still like trying to make sense of a can of alphabet soup that’s been dumped on a plate.

wish I had my Sketchbook of Impossible Things. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not a waste of space. I like to watch the pictures in my head become real in my book. My recent favorite is a snowman that works in a furnace factory.

And when I’m nervous, forget it. My brain goes blank like an Etch A Sketch turned upside down and shaken. Gray and empty.

I wish she could understand my world. But it would be like trying to explain to a whale what it’s like to live in the forest.

I like hearing about the story. But asking me to read them would be like asking a lobster to play tennis.

I feel like a fish in a wire cage rather than a tank.

He has written cat on the board and we talk about the sounds. I can only hear one sound—cat—but he says that the word cat has three separate sounds. It feels like he’s telling me the sky is yellow.