FORMISTS
Word Count: 239
I cannot be what I’m supposed to be; wife, mother, keeping the kitchen sparkling clean and rooms where you can look under the beds and not fear being dragged down into a hole of nether-earth where things with icepick teeth are waiting.
I can’t conform.
Nor do I have the bravery, the fire that fights for causes, for justice where injustice is the norm. I cannot dye my hair red-purple and wear black lipstick. Paint my toes with names of fallen soldiers. Tattoo a hickey on my neck.
I will ballerina-balance with toes pointed on the edge but just can’t cross the line.
Between these two there is a hollow. A curve of concrete like a skateboard bowl. I slide into the center, stand up, look around. All is equal. A horizon level and without a blip or zig-zag or the slightest dip.
I kneel down and dig my fingers into man-made stone and pull it in, gather it from its edges to its center core. Pull it up and shape it, give it angles, bends, elbows, knees, a nose. Smile and pat its bottom and send it on its way.
I can do this, this middle-groundness where what isn’t as it could be can be reinvented. Where what is not yet known can be created from a breeze that drifts ideas by.
I am a formist. I form things from thin air.
what a great character…a keeper if you ask me: “Paint my toes with names of fallen soldiers.” also like the form here, the description and the interlaced single statements, giving rhythm.
I kind of liked “tatoo a hickey on my neck” which came through to me just at that instant. The word “formist” actually came from a captcha prompt on a comment I’d just made on someone else’s piece in the project! Just now, my comment word was “douch” which I think I’ll ignore.