A personal anecdote. Originally written for poetry slam, 2005. |
Shapeshifter When the blue sky is masked by joyless swells of grey, and my breath is a snapshot of rolling white words, I am reminded of a dead November and a girl I no longer know. In the incarnation of a graceless, plumpish pre-teen, I welcomed the early day as it seeped through the pewter clouds, searching for lemon-smeared curls and seawater eyes; my best friend, whose existence had given weight to my own self-esteem. There had been no hint of a forked tongue or fangs; no, this was to come later. It was our habit to retrace our steps around the baseball diamond, stamping the plate with rubber-soled shoes, wanting to leave some kind of mark. In my innocence, I’d failed to notice the sinuous tracks that grooved in the dirt behind her as she moved. That November morning, as I neared the playground wall I saw that someone else stood in my place, A smell of smugness betrayed some sour design, and their smirks were ominous, alluding to some shared secret as I heard the sounds of slithers in the sickly, yellowed grass. I stood silent, a point in an awkward triangle, knowing what loomed above us. The leaves began to menace me swirling and floating weightlessly, caught on the air like discarded reptilian casings. My kindred sister had lips that glittered and eyes that were hemmed with black. Her plump, puerile face was now chalky and oval, and her newly cut cheeks were slapped with the cold blood of late-autumn mornings. She had shifted shape, morphed into a pubescent demi-goddess, and I was still bauble-haired and artless; a square who got stuck in the mouth of round holes. My expulsion was like the pop of a balloon: air hissing out, in a long pathetic whimper, while the two of them reveled in twisted, animal triumph as the old skin lay shed upon the pavement. I wondered how I could not have known that a twelve-year-old could cackle. On that cold day, I never heard myself hit the ground. I did not feel the scraping of my knees or the bruising of an already tender psyche. I scarcely remember how I picked myself up, or how I managed to walk away. The scars remain, though slightly faded, but they argue against the resilience of children just the same. Only I know they are there: jagged reminders of a biting lesson learned on a late-autumn playground. |