15 July 2007

Body Image Prompt

Annika didn't have a body image problem, because she didn't have a single body image. What she had were several fragments, several pieces of body images--if they could rightly be called that--that intersected at various curves and points. They were all part of her, but no single one could ever be a true image of her self.

When she was a girl, Annika kept the secret of these fragments. The other girls around her knew exactly who they were and what they were here for, even if it changed from day to day. She was never sure. In fact, most of the time she felt like a visitor here. Not quite alien, but not quite a native. She suspected there was nothing wrong with her, or the other girls, but that she could see something no one else could. She could see the fragile, slipping, shifting segments of souls.

Annika didn't tell anyone. Until she was fifteen. Until she had her first real kiss. Until she felt safe enough to tell someone things weren't quite what they seemed.

Something happens when we kiss someone. Sometimes it's disgust, for the other person, or ourselves. Sometimes it's a rocket-rush of pleasure. Sometimes, and this is how it was this first time, this first kiss, with this person, for Annika, sometimes it is out of this world. She dug her fingers into the worn fabric of the sofa, clutching for something, anything, to ground her to earth, to keep her holding on.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine."

"You sure? You look a million miles away."

"I'm fine. It's just. Well. Um, do you ever feel like you might come apart?" she asked him. He would have laughed but for the sincerity in her clear, steady eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Just sometimes do you feel like if you don't hold on tight, all the million pieces of yourself might up and fly away?"

"Kiss me again."

Annika kissed him. The feeling had passed. With relief, and a tinge of disappointment, she let go of the couch and put her fingers in his hair. It was thick hair, and cut short so that it resembled the bristles of a hairbrush, but it was not without softness. It smelled like soap. And something else. Something sweet. Strawberries at the beach. Or the folds of a baby's ear. Or the particles of air in some barely remembered meadow far, far away.

02 July 2007

Liz's Fireworks Prompt

ROMAN CANDLE

There are summers where I feel young, where the sun slips through the branches and lands on several blades of grass, where a butterfly is flitting across the clover, wings fluttering. A sad sort of happiness springs up inside me, awe at being alive, a glimmer of what life means. This isn't one of those summers.

I feel old. I feel like the Roman candle purchased by a little boy at the local fireworks stand. It's the first time he gets to light his own firework, with help from Dad, and he's excited. They set the Roman candle in the large block of concrete. They aim it away from the house, toward the stars. Dad lets him light the wick all by himself. They run away. The little boy squeals. He jumps, elated. Then stands very still, watching, waiting. The wick burns slowly. The flame moves down through the tube. Smoke gurgles out. And then nothing. No pyrotechnic star shoots from the tube, like a bullet from a gun. It's a dud.

This summer has no charge. It's heavy. And slow. I wander from place to place, trying to fill in the gaps of being awake with little things. Washing dishes. Watering roses. Weeding through e-mails. Looking for little wonders in the blades of overgrown grass.