When I was a child I asked my mother what the tiny pink patch I found on my body was… She said that when God was making me, the angels thought I was so sweet that they’ve taken a small bite of my tush, just like we use our index finger to steal some icing off a cake, or taste that delicious batter we’re not allowed the freedom to just drink up.
As a child, I really liked any stories involving angels, so hearing that rendered me extremely joyous. There was also the one where they’ve given me dimples on various spots on my body because they were pinching around the squishiness of my baby self, and another in which they’d visit every now and then to share their milk rice porridge with me as I slept.
Years passed. Wonderful years during which my mother agreed with the angels all throughout, unconditionally; The years that made my heart grow so big it couldn’t fit inside my body any more.
Somewhere from there to where I currently am, the love between my mother and I was the same in quantity… However, it underwent drastic qualitative changes, and started requiring more to maintain. She started to think that maybe the angels weren’t 100% right at some point, and that was when I became determined to try everything I could to erase that doubt off her heart, and also started feeling like none of it would ever be enough.
I remember random glimpses of my life where I’d read a page of a fat dictionary each night for years, and others where I’d only get my musical instrument from under the dust or set my voice free when no one was home.
And so started a cruel cycle of trial and error; I’d spend hours with strings, needles, brushes, pieces of wood, wires, books, and a bunch of other things, not knowing if any of them would be my next useful key to the door of love.
Myself would learn a ton of things and then go ahead and make them visible to try and test the waters. The ones that worked, I’d kept out in the open and gave them freedom to play and leap around, and the ones that got me a fake smile or a dismissive comment, if not a very mean one laced in laughter, I’d hidden in the heaviest casket before throwing it to the bottom of the ocean.
And it did work.
However, none of the things that worked could work long enough, for the lock kept changing every few years, giving me more things to learn, and each time they were getting harder. I started running out of new things that wouldn’t hurt me any more than I was already, and another problem was that my heart decided to have a mind of its own. One magical night, it dove straight to the bottom of the ocean, and sought out its most favorite things ever so stupidly.
When I decided to finally do things for myself, the angels vanished from around me just the way all the love did. No one wanted to think of me as sweet any more, for I had visible crystals of salt and grains dust all over me, and my very own squad of demons had the heavy scent of their perfume lingering in the air wherever I went.
I really miss not being a useless overused joke, and I miss the time when I felt like freedom was mine and looked good on me. I miss when my name wasn’t said with shame, and when I felt like someone’s hopes and dreams incarnate. However, I am better off with things just the way they turned out to be. I am happy with knowing that this version of myself is able to be my own hopes and dreams incarnate.
More than a decade later, my birthmark is still here, but I don’t want the angels to like me any more. Their love is painful and unnecessarily expensive, and as time goes by, it’s getting more and more inaccessible and tiresome to reach. Sure, it does make me sad… Most of the time, actually. But I’ve spent enough time hating things I should love, and I’ve decided I don’t want to run after golden wrappers any more if kraft paper is what makes me the happiest.
I just want to be left alone.
♦-♦-♦-♦
SingulariT 