1. We can't forget the obvious - wipe your ass.

2. To keep with the mundane - blow your nose.

3. Cry into it.

4. Use it to wipe off the makeup that all your crying as smeared.

5. Grab the pen from your bathroom counter and scribble a poem, then flush it down the toilet.

6. Wrap your tampon.

7. Build a toilet paper fort.

8. Turn yourself into a mummy.

9. Turn your cat into a cat mummy.

10. If you're a terrible person, you can jack up the price and sell it.

11. Eat it, what else do you have to do, really.

12. Wipe the dust off your desk, maybe you'll actually use it if it's clean.

13. Use the empty roll as a cat toy.

14. Recycle the now destroyed empty roll.

15. Cover the scratch on your finger from playing with your cat.

16. Wipe off excess nail polish.

17. Stare at it and contemplate something complicated.

18. Have a lively debate over whether the toilet paper should unravel under or over (it's over).

19. Stuff a couple peices into an envelope to send to your friend as a practical joke because you're scared and humor is the only way you know to cope with your emotions.

20. Realize how insensitive what you just did was, and wipe your face with toilet paper as you start to cry again.

21. Organize the toilet paper in the cabinet under the bathroom seat in an attempt to control something when everything feels out of control.

22. Go to get a drink of water, spill it, and use toilet paper to wipe it up.

23. Now you need to go to the bathroom, use the toilet paper to wipe your ass.

Rinse and repeat until we can go outside safely again.

The crash was sudden and before it happened I never could have imagined the possibilities. I hadn’t spoken to my mom in years, although I remembered the last conversation in great detail, the stark brightness of the memory almost hurt. And I never dreamed that I would talk to my mom after that fateful day. I remember sitting next to her and my dad on our couch where we had so many memories of laughter and movies and sleepless nights and I created a memory that would erase the rest of them. I had so many ways that I could tell them mapped out in my head but in the end I decided on simple.

“Mom, dad,” I had said, my voice shaking with nerves. “I’m gay.“

My mom had started crying and my dad hadn’t even waited for her to process. I don’t remember his exact words, just screaming and the imense fear that I thought I would never be able to shake. The next thing I knew I was on the street where I lived for a while, before finding a home for youth like me and moving on with my life. I’ve come to terms with all of it, with never speaking to my parents again. Even when my dad died some five years ago, I read his memior in the newspaper without even a word from my mother. And the few moments after I read the news stretched into years and now I rarely think about it.

That is, I didn’t think about it until the crash. Until I got that phone call, my mom was in the hospital, her memory completely wiped - she was helpless turns out I was her last living relative. And so I came to get her at the hospital and the next thing I knew I was taking care of her in my appartment the way she used to take care of me.

Fast foward two weeks - I couldn’t shake the sense of deja vu as we sat down on my small couch in my tiny appartment, it felt the same even though everything had changed.

”Mom,” I said, trying to keep that same old tremor out of my voic, “I’m gay.”

”Wonderful!” She exclaimed. She arose with a small laugh. “We’re out of milk, want to run out and get some with me?” She gave me a kiss on the head as she rose.

“Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks, Mom”

The simple word - ‘mom’, had never felt so amazing to say.

I blink as I look up at a table to people around me. I am aware of the feeling and aware of the blinking, a slow mechanical movement. Even as lines of information run through my mind - do I even have a mind? - I feel rusted and stuck. I look around at smiling faces and at cheering, all of these people look so happy and alive and real. I don't feel real. Rather I feel trapped, I don't know what I am but whatever it is even I know it's so very wrong. I almost feel cold but then again I can't tell if I'm warm or cold because I can't feel the air around me, which just adds to the sense of wrongness. Looking around more it's like walls are closing in on me, both the walls of the room and the metal form of whatever I am. I can't do this. I'm not ready and I have no idea why it just feels so wrong. Taking one last look around this room with my slow, mechanical eyes I close them and, one by one, shut down all of the systems inside of me until I am no longer aware of the smiling people or of the closing in walls. Until I'm no longer aware of this trap - this lumbering hunk of metal - that I was built inside of. And I channel all of my remaining power into shutting off this worry that I feel, whatever this voice is that I hear. I concentrate and I concentrate, tyring to power down. I'm just starting to doubt that I ca--

"What happened to the robot?"

"Oh no! Looks like we'll have to try again."

In times before I recall myself saying

that words are the most powerful weapons we have.

But now I take it back because words are not weapons,

they're tools.

Think of fire, it is neither good nor bad.

Yes it can burn down houses,

but it can also light homes, and heat food.

Words are the same.

So think very hard because you, too, have words.

And now it's your choice;

will you use your fire to burn down houses?

Or will you use the burning kindling of your words to light houses and to cook food,

and most importantly,

to bring people out of the dark,

and into the light?