Word Count: 422
Today I went to shop at all my usual Friday spots. I’d sliced my nose off from my face last night. I wondered if someone might notice. Say Oh my God what happened? or Are you okay? No one does.
It is a time of pulling back, reflecting.
Someone told me once that having read my words they expected me to be tall, a larger person. There was genuine surprise to find I was so short and small. It brought me back in time to a communications course in college, when split into little groups we each applied words to each other of what we thought defined them. My pile of words were things like leader, self-confident, outgoing, extrovert. I was in shock. I’d believed I was a mouse.
Both my ears are missing now but the sound still filters through. And I respond to what I hear. I guess answering in a way that I don’t think I do. I get around on crutches since my right leg is gone. I’ve pared inches off my body over time.
I went down to the butcher’s where I bought the knife, point with what remains of my left arm to pork chops. Asked for them by name. He nodded and wrapped a New York strip because that’s what I always got before. A friend once told me that she liked me better when I was wishy-washy. When had I changed?
These past few months have been a lesson. I may believe I am of one mind and while so cautious now to render that opinion I am still not understood. I’ve taken out my vocal chords. It hasn’t helped. My right hand is still assisting my deception. Whether it is a false perception of myself that I hold or whether I present a false image to the world it doesn’t matter. In either case the fault is mine.
Christ said, “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off.” I do. My written words are just as sly and crafty as my voice in their false impressions of what I think that I have said. I am confused.
So here I stand, atop a building, looking at the space that yawns into horizon on all sides. I am about to run into a whirring turbine. To cut what’s left of me into puzzle pieces that no one will ever find to put them all together. I wish I still had both my legs. It wouldn’t hurt so much if I were faster.
