Deserving

"You deserve better than that," they say together. And they seem to mean it, staring intently at me, "You don't deserve anything they put you through." I stutter a bit, trying to come up with a nice way of explaining this that won't lose me my friends, or at least, that won't stop the tangled hug keeping me warm. It's interesting to me that I can pass as a normal, deserving person.

They don't see what I see, what's so glaringly obvious just beneath the skin. I'm a bad person. There, I've said it. Shame on me for nearly thinking differently. Shame on me. I thought maybe today, I was good. I thought singing at the retirement home was good, but I just fooled them too. I got my reminder before I forgot.

My phone lit up. Glancing down and flipping through the unread messages, there's a new text. "Look in a mirror," it advises, "You manipulate and control people for attention," and then goes on to explain that I'm self centered, I've alienated every friend I had, and of course, that they hate me too.

I look up, still smiling, and click the phone off. That's a skill I've mastered. To keep smiling. Even when it hurts enough that you want to fall to your knees and beg them to stop hurting you. Please. But that's a privilege reserved for people who were wronged. Still smiling. That smile bothers me. There's something so wrong about it. There's something so wrong about all of it.

It's not that I don't deserve it. I must, mustn't I? Or maybe I've just gotten used to it.

Patchwork Mind

Brooding, I tangle my fingers in my hair as I stare at the blinking cursor, and fiddle with the latch above my ear. Out of habit, I press the catch, and my head falls open with a pop. I drift over the familiar ridges of my mind, the bits I know so well of myself.

Absentmindedly, I play with the stitches I put in long ago, in a chunky, uneven line. I've gotten used to the thread there, how I fixed myself to be. I prefer it that way.

I pull gently on a loose end, and it gives. Caught by surprise, I keep pulling, letting them all unravel. Pain tears through my head as the last thread pulls out. Horrifyingly, it hasn't healed, just as ugly as I remembered. I grasp at the kinked and crusted thread, hiding it in my hands, and shove it deep into my pocket. Quickly, I latch my head shut again, and try to pretend nothing happened.

Stories

These are their stories. They carry around their quills, still dripping with ink, as they share and write over and over again. Together, their fingertips are ink-stained in the same colors of shared memories.  I wrote stories too, before, stories to share and tell, but they're sealed up in the leather bound books of others, on shelves far away.

The stories of now have been written here, a setting novel to me. I can read them as many times as I want,  rub my fingers on the pages, but the ink has long dried.

Wish Upon a Star

Walking back from the theater, I balance on the curb, teetering gently to either side. The darkness is young, exploring the world with quiet fingers. Dusky charcoal dusts the sky, blending out to the edges of the world.

The slivered moon shyly peeks out from behind the blackened branches of a bare tree. Elsewhere in the sky, there's a single star with the same whispered glow. I grab it quickly, and close my eyes. Wobbling on my toes, I keep walking, one foot in front of the other on the narrow asphalt. I wish on the breath that leaves my mouth in soft wisps of white.

A misstep, and I stumble off. Opening my eyes again, I glance upward at my wishing star, but it's missing. The sky is black now, even the slivered moon has hidden behind the thicker branches.

I can't help thinking I used it up. I walk inside under guilt and an empty sky.