The Test

I am only fifteen years old, and already used to being on the road, a predicament caused by the inconsistencies of family life and my father's precarious job offers. Insanity walks me from state to state, and into assorted worlds where lists of names I cannot recognized have been carved sketchily into the walls.

I glance in the bedside mirror, an ornamental accessory where the dark grain of the wood has been shaped in contrast to the lighter sheen and crafted to an art rather than a practicality. I see myself, as I always do, the simplistic yet exact replication of my features in the reflective glass, the pallor in the gentle hollows of my cheeks catching the weak light, and my unbrushed hair falling into the path of my right eye. I am a bone cage of lies, a waxy mask with slanted eyes and a mouth melted over by a raging fire or smashed glass lantern, the decoration and attention to detail ruined by the malfunctioning mechanical features. You could wash away my confidence faster than I'd drown with my head pinned down in that same flowing river.

My bony fingers fumble at my lace collar, and I find these ruffles too precise and elegant for my clumsy mind. I run my palms down the sleeves, straightening out every crease and fault in the clean and intricate white.

I wondered if my peers had ever taken a gamble at my honest personality, but I doubted that they would. From my personal portrayal of myself, I felt that there was little basis for them to go on. I assumed that I was seen, but looked at with a sense of avoidance.

"My curiosity lies in any words you've spoken."

Without speech, I could hardly provide conversation or friendship in the correct manner.

I am the boy who clamped his mouth so tightly shut that the remnants of his emotions can only bleed through his fingertips. I spit poetry and elegance in revolting fragments on a complex, yet ruined tongue, jaw always clenched painfully from each successive blow.

"And fix up your jaw but that's not really what's broken."

Breaking my silence would produce bitter sounds which bruise the surface of my eyelids and taint the things I see. Purple hazes and artistic representations of sunsets yet to happen, scenes I'd rather paint on myself with a tattered brush.

I know I will never meet anybody's expectations. But I'd bite my tongue cleanly in two, and allow the blood to flow endlessly down my throat, and I'd endure the warm, sour pain for the promise that the taste of the liquid would be that of confidence and honesty.

I am soon to be forced onwards in my secluded, isolated lifestyle, and delivered multiple blows to the back in the hopes that the foreign tongues of professionality will find their way into my rusty throat. I'll spend two vacant hours running my index finger over the words I wrote when my safety net snapped. And as the shaky seconds pass, I'll try to avert my gaze because my expectations and hopeless thoughts can only be cut short by what I knew to be the truth.

Pursuit, fueled by the concept of impossible things. Incessant, pained analysis of Gabe's words, words I had scribbled down onto my wrist, secreting the memory for myself.

"My curiosity lies in any words you've spoken."

I'm reading too far into a simple assignment, and I cannot stop the functions of my mind from picking apart the individual words, nor can I silence the constant repetitions of ideas playing in my head like a broken record.

It might not have been about me. It might have just been some bullshit he'd made up, something to get a good grade, something to hand in just because he had to.

"My curiosity lies in any words you've spoken."

It might not have been about me.

My words have no meaning anymore, I'll explain. I'm lying. I've grabbed myself by the scruff of the neck and forced myself to grow up because growing old cannot be as painful as growing cold and lonely. For now, this facade keeps me calm.

I intend to communicate, but I have lost my strength and mentality to do so. I feel as if I will splice my lower lip if I speak, opening the flesh and revealing a messy abyss of warm, red blood, which will spill all over my chin and throat, and that I'll cry and cough, unable to explain the ideas I'm trying so hard to express.

I have a lot to tell this boy, the one who can listen patiently to silence, and engage actively in a conversation where only one party is able to communicate. I could write ten pages for him, explanations and anecdotes and maybe an apology for my shaky, dull attitude. But I choose not to, because my silence, my worst side, appears an asset because I can keep my thoughts close.

My words have no meaning anymore.

The handwriting I chose today was small, and cursive, the letters formed more delicately than the way they were displayed in my school excersize book.

Irrelevant, quiet ramblings in the mind of a madman, or so I had been forced to call these pieces of writing. I suppose I would label it as a journal, although my thoughts had a tendency to stray a little from conventional processes.

Most of my entries in this book were nonsensical, mere snippets, lines from songs which had not been fully formed or just ideas that might flow a little too fast for my own mind.

I closed the blue book, tucking my pen into the spiraling binder along the side, and looked over at the digital display on my alarm clock.

The bus was due in one minute and forty seconds. I gathered up my possessions and left the house.