Unraveling Pearls

There are always words on tongues. I have learned this, that if you keep them there, balancing long enough instead of letting them fall, you can swallow them back down, and let them fall back, deep into your belly, into yourself, where you can keep them, fashioning them like pearls.

Words and thoughts alone are wispy, hard to grasp. If you wait long enough, you can collect enough of these, bundle them up, press them together, and lock them away, hard little pearls gathered in your belly for nobody else to see. I apologize now to my pen pal, to whom uncountable letters have been scribbled, started, again and again, only to be lost. Everything I must say lies solid, and I've no idea how to unravel them.

There is someone who can. She can read in us what we cannot read in ourselves. Somehow, unbelievably, she can find the edge of a circle, and unravel all the knots and tangles until it's words again, and can be understood. She does the same with art and music, as though she can taste colors and touch harmonies, creating patterns never seen.

After school, we stand together outside, waiting to return home. Laughing, I tell her about my acceptance letter, filled with glitter and confetti. She asks if I'm going. Here, I pause, unable to describe all my reservations, the unnerving conformity, and the fear that I'll never fit in. I cannot word these things, so instead I reach up and unlock my chest. Pearls lie inside, fat, warped, and off-white. I pull them out, and hand them to her, before locking the door shut again. In her hands, they melt, and she understands.

"Don't worry," she soothes. "Look around. There's stereotypes and majorities everywhere you look. But for as many cliques there are that act the way they do, there's people like you and me."