I am Kylie, and I have Aquagenic Urticaria, which is an allergy to water. The minute it touches my skin, it blisters. Water is like acid as it touches me. I can drink water. However, I always wondered what it would be like to touch the ocean and feel the waves splash up on my body, to wear a bikini and not feel threatened to go into the water, or to enjoy a walk in the rain and kiss a cute guy like I have seen in The Notebook. That's a dream I have that will never come true.

I was teased at school because I wore a brown pair of waders. I did not want to have my skin get blistered. I felt like a victim, my teachers did not know about my condition because my mom did not think it was any of their business. Not to mention I only got close with two teachers. Mrs.S and Mrs.Greene who I would always tell that I'm gonna be famous. They knew right from the beginning. I was always reading and always smiling, singing and being super happy, but they said "one day you're going to change the world" and I believed it. The only people that knew about my condition were my mom and my friend, Marissa . Marissa was the greatest friend I could possibly ever have because she came to my defense when a couple of girls, Neisha and Leah, gave me the nickname of Fraidy Wady. I always tried to avoid water and I always carried hand sanitizer ever since then. However, after an incident in third grade I was taken out of public school.

So, you may be wondering how I am pursuing my education. Well, I am homeschooled and I took a lot of art classes because I had a passion for both art and poetry. I loved to paint the sky, the white overlapping the blue sky with shading in the clouds or the sun beaming through the clouds. I also loved to paint the different colors of horizons, the green and blues of oceans, and imagine in my head as if I was there. I won't ever touch water it is forbidden for me to do so. I even wrote poems about it. however, I've been writing poems about the neighbor boy because recently, I have felt that my heart was someplace else. I just recently realized that all this time I had feelings for the neighbor-boy. I tend to shy away from love, but I only felt this one other time. I was in 3rd grade. I remembered this boy and I knew I had only met him once. Marissa and I were outside laying in the grass, rolling in the grass and playing by the swings picking dandelions during recess and he was playing soccer since he was the champ and he made sure I knew that. He accidentally kicked a soccer ball at my head. It hurt but I'm glad that happened because it gave me a chance to meet him. He introduced himself, high-fived me and gave me a hug. It was just an innocent little crush I had on him, and it felt different than anybody else before. I felt so happy because I never felt emotions like that, until now. I told Marissa about it and my face turned bright red. Marissa playfully teased me about it for the longest time, until I was...