As of writing this, I am at the end of my first quarter of community college. I am still a high school student, but all of my classes are at the college and I am working towards my Associate of Science. Back in high school I was out as a transguy, but now I’m mostly going stealth. I’m lucky that my campus has a large population of Asians and Hispanics, because people of that race often are shorter than Europeans, and so there are a number of men on the campus whose height is the same or only slightly greater than my meager 5 foot 3 and ½ inches.

Busy, inexpensive parties had become common events after my mother bought her first house. This time the party was in honor of my stepfather, an immigrant from the Republic of Georgia, having just received his American citizenship. My happiness for him was stifled by a trivial matter: whenever one attended a party, introductions were made. I reeled and snarled inside at the thought of being introduced by that name. K-. A girl’s name.

What my body used to be is not the same as what I am now. What I am now is a composite of my past body and my past environment. And those two things were created out of a more distant past yet. This is the principle of cause and effect, karma, whatever you like to call it. It is woven into the fabric of the universe.

Deer is a lot of things it's not.

Don’t think I’m falling into the trap of asserting that 'prey species' are mindless drones who simply react and who are not complex enough to be meaningful in and of themselves; I’m not. I’m very aware of the individuality and intelligence that such species display. That said, I will not ignore what is a basic truth for me: deer is all about what is around it. All animals must survive, and deer cannot simply fall back into themselves to achieve this.

Deer is about food. Fuel. Continuation. Stagnancy. Pausing.