Birth

I really thought this would be different.

I remember where she started. Two eyes, a dot for a nose, and a chalky curved line smile. Suddenly I am blinded by bright hotness from above. Glittering bluewhitebright, and I can’t even close my eyes to get away from it.

You probably don’t know this, but it’s nearly impossible to draw a perfectly round circle. It took her 27 tries to get this. All that smeared-finger rubbing, spit wiping me away and then gritty chalk bringing me back into being. I would shudder right now, thinking about it, but as I hardly have shoulders I can’t.

Everyone says this, and I know it’s trite, but: I hate my hair. It hurts. Your hair probably doesn’t hurt, does it? Spikes driven into your roundish skull? I thought not. No, your hair lies there, softly, awaiting caresses. Mine is — what? — Brillo? A bed of nails? No one will ever caress it.

I cannot express my bitterness over having only four fingers. You probably take your thumb for granted. I think my balloon is tied to my wrist — do they think I am a child who knows no better than to let go of balloons and allow such graceful delights to waft into the sky, never to be seen again? Oh no — I’m no fool. I know a good thing when I’ve got one. I would never let go.

It might not even BE a balloon. I have tried to face that fact, that perhaps what I’ve got here is an upside-down bag of gold (worthless, no doubt, when compared to the bounty and promise of a balloon), but I cannot. To me, an oval atop a wee triangle MUST be a balloon.

I wish I could run. I won’t speak more about that. Too painful.

And then there is HER. I can tell that she thinks this is really something, you know? That we have a “relationship”  — I would do the air quote thing here  (I do know about them!) but alas, I am disabled. Please make allowances accordingly.

Oh. I should probably tell you that what truly terrifies me is rain.

I really can’t talk about it.

~~~

This is part of a 30-day foray into the art of ekphrasis, or writing from art. What you read today was 10 minutes of unedited writing from the chalk drawing image you see. Each day I will choose a new image and write for 10 minutes using the image as a starting place. I call the category Phantasm, which according to my dictionary is a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition, or archaic, an illusory likeness of something.