The young girl twined the red string around her finger
All the flesh caught between the strands swelled and she could feel her pulse thumping against the thread.
She pulled it taut, the line of woven string fluttering like the wings of a butterfly against her pounding heart.
The sound of rattling metal filled the quiet room and she realized she was shaking, bringing the scissors open jaw to catch the string just at the crossing of the blades.
Against her own will her mind became awash with memories she had long since left desiccated.
Her mother, the garden by the old school, the way people always get her name wrong.
Tears soaked into the colored carpet leaving small discolored patches in the fabric.
The cool wind caught on her wet face and she brought her sleeve to wipe her cheek.
What certainty had brought her to this room had long been shattered.
As she shook like a leaf the razor edge of the scissors would catch the woolen twine and for a moment all would be still
The broken animal holding the scissors hunched over into a huddled mass of heaving life
She did not want to go, this much she now knew
But there was nothing of her left to return to now
What journeys lead people to sever the cord never leave homes in their stead
Nor a path to walk back.
She could return to the stone walls and bed
There would be a life that played out like flickering shadows cast
By a candles flame
All the steps in the sequence of life could be met in full flavor
Yet what was taken then
What led her here
She could never be anything else again.
She did not want to go
The scissors rotated on their hinge as her fingers closed together
A gentle snip and then the clatter of metal on the floor
Fear frozen in her eyes as they desperately looked to find something lost once
And never found.
The string hung loose around her finger in quiet embrace
Still as death.
A scratch that disrupts
The tender skin
There is a scab
And then there is skin again.
But there is still a wound left
Pressed into a vault of memory
Made to protect
Abused and mistreated
Used to store pictures of
People that filled your excitement
With fear
That turned your curiosity
Into nervous shuffles and eyes
That trace the floor
Wounds that are not there anymore
But hurt like they are
And you start to see the image of them in
Places where they shouldn't be
In the places where shadows touch and make
Kaleidoscopic patterns and that
Aching, untouched part of you
Starts to bleed again
And you recede to places consumed
By your loneliness begging and pleading to escape to
Any place where living actually means something
Until you flutter like a piece of waxy paper
Blown away by any disturbance
Back to the bottom of the ladder
Looking at every single person
You could have been.
And then you are in a convenience store
And there are monsters
With big teeth and gnashing jaws
And they collect their groceries
And they get in their car
And you feel yourself being pulled apart
And you wonder why you are so scared again
And then you are in a classroom
And there is nothing but gaping mouths
And mangled figures
Ready to crush you back into that place
You swore you'd never go back to
And you want to go home but you
Don’t know where it went
And then someone touches you
And you are paralyzed
And you can't move
And you are back there again
And the scratch bleeds again
And you realize you will never
Be anywhere else
In reflections you see
A monster with the figure of every
Loathsome face you've collected
Every tormentor trapped in your hall of mirrors
Unable to let them go
You see your body has grown around every
Scratch left on you
Disfigured into abstraction
Bent into monstrosity
One thousand scabs
And then there was skin again
And while everyone wonders
What happened to you
You see a person in a memory
With your name
And you realize
You don't get to be them anymore.