why all hands should be written on (a prose piece)

***
YOU ARE OKAY.

I wrote that on my left hand this morning, in thick black sharpie, running from my wrist to the middle of my thumb.

In these crowded streets no one notices, no one stops and asks why it's necessary, no one even sees. And that's the way I want it to be.I want them to know I'm okay without having written evidence, just look in my eyes, look at my face, tell me it's the face of someone who is okay, truly okay, someone who will stay okay for a long time. Tell me it's not the face of someone who is beaten and broken and somehow still breaking.

At school I get some curious glances from teachers when I'm handing in papers. I remind myself to use my right hand instead, but it's not something I'm used to. Obviously, I keep forgetting, and teachers keep looking at my hand, looking at my eyes, shaking their heads but saying nothing. I don't know what they think, and part of me wants to know. Sure, I didn't want it to be seen, but now that it is, I need a response, I need some sort of reassuring or demeaning word, something to give this ink on my hand meaning beyond just me.

What kind of a person would write that on their hands?

Someone hurting, they'd say, or recovering. Or maybe they would say: someone strange, someone who needs to get their head adjusted. Someone like me.

***
HOPE

I wrote that yesterday, and it didn't reach my thumb, didn't bend to reach papers or crack with my knuckles. It simply stayed.

I met with my counselor that day, and she told me to stop reading so many books about teenage suicide. She said: that's never a good option, sweetie; before adjusting her glasses and scribbling something down on the stack of papers she'd placed in my file. I told her they were about more than that. I told her they were about life more than death. She nodded, but I don't think she believed me. She stared at my hand and told me: maybe don't write on your hand any more, darling, try something else, a sticky note, or a keychain.

I don't want to buy a new keychain every day, I tell her, and I haven't taken notes in weeks. Why not? There is really no point in it. Don't I want to remember these subjects, math or history or science? All I need to know I've written on my hands. She dismissed me from her office then, mumbling something about a lost cause.

I wonder, if I'd written something different on my hand that day, would she have said that under her breath? Would she have said it at all?

If everyone wrote like I write on my hand, would we act differently around them? Would we choose our words more carefully or avoid certain subjects? Would there be more hugging and laughing or tears and silence? I like to think both. Sometimes silence is necessary. Maybe everyone needs to write on their hands as much as I do. Maybe my counselor should change her recommendations.

I can't bear to think about it too much, though, so I write a final reminder, one more thing before going out into the crowded world where hands don't speak and no one bothers to check anyway. I open my palm and place the cold tip of the thick sharpie on it.

**
FIND YOURSELF.

A Cheesy Prose Piece a Day

So.. most of what I've been writing are what is mentioned in the title. They're fictional stream-of-consciousness prose pieces. I take on a (usually anonymous) character and write as them. Nothing else. I write one a day, so I believe I will start posting them here, as they're not TWiG material.

It only took me five years to forget his name, surprisingly enough. I thought it would be longer. That boy was crazy, with the motley colors he insisted on wearing, the way he spoke his mind without thinking, the way he could convince anyone to do anything, no matter how insane it sounded. I participated in his schemes for ten years of my life, ten long, troublesome years that always left someone disappointed in me.

That one boy. Everyone knew him, everyone loved him, nobody understood why. We mentioned ‘that kid’ and everyone knew who we were talking about. Everyone knew we were talking about the guy frozen at sixteen, the age we all said goodbye, the age he went far away and went for good.

But what was his name? I remember his eyes, as multicolored as his clothes, his laugh, contagious even to strangers, his smile, suspicious but endearing, his hands, rough and calloused and always caked with dirt. He had a name, I used to tell myself, but I’m becoming less and less sure. Maybe he didn’t have one; maybe he didn’t need one.

In any case. I remember his voice, how it rang across the room, travelled through my ears and left little room for anything else. I remember how some mocked him and I stood by, flushed but silent, not daring to oppose them. I remember how we all would’ve died for him, he was a leader, he was ours, no one else’s, no one else’s until he turned sixteen and disappeared forever.

I remember his hand on my shoulder, his chapped lips on my cheek, his whispering somehow louder than the noisy crowd. I remember when I found out he was leaving, how I convinced myself everyone else was only pretending not to care, how I knew, just knew, that no one could possibly care the way I did. But there had to be some heartbreak that wasn’t mine. There had to be some other goodbye that wasn’t easy, some other person that felt the sting when he only smiled and waved them away before leaving.

It took me five years to forget his name, and I wonder how long it will take me to forget the rest.

Silence

cc

Lately, I've begun to appreciate the silence more. I know, it sounds like an unnecessary thing to say, but silence used to terrify me. Sometimes it still does. No sound from anywhere except your screaming thoughts... it has the potential to be awful.

But life is hectic. Life is hurried and breathless and dizzying. Life leaves little room for anything; my thoughts and I are strangers, my words can't slow anything down, my hands only aid in the acceleration.

The rare moment of silence, of being alone. I hate being alone, usually, but, this past month at least, the state hasn't bothered me as much as it usually does.

Don't get me wrong, my thoughts are screaming more than usual. I've reached a point in my life where there are so many people who will listen but so few I am actually willing to talk to*. So I hold all the words inside, hold them and let life's fury carry me away, silently, deliberately, to avoid facing everything I have to.

I speak fewer words than I used to. It's like the sound of my own voice surprises me, a new sensation entirely. I don't know why I'm writing this here, of all places, but I figured it's about time I admit it.

I'm using silence the same way I used to use busy-ness. As a way to run away. As a way to avoid facing what I need to.

Status: it's working.


*I'd like to clarify that the fault in this is mine, and mine alone. My friends are wonderful, incredibly so.

French class on Tuesday!

...does that mean I have to actually start updating this blog?
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