A brief history of nothing
by Janina C. Bagherzadeh
Original Prompt:
Write a piece entitled: A Brief History of Nothing
Too much to remember
Not enough to write down. Time is falling
through my hands and gathering in
between the years I’ve lost to future
whispers. Like
Where will my reach go
And how long and how far and how wide.
And
Child hands and child eyes
Child loves and child clothes.
I loathed the sight of lightning but I adored the rain.
This comes back to me.
A bruise I can’t remember and a scab I picked
A white tank top the size of my adult thigh
Stretch now stiff, flat, crunching under fingers
Backpacks I once recognized
Faces I once saw
With straight blonde hair
Longer than I remember
Shorter than I thought. – falling out.
Tighter jeans then loose again
Red-speckled face and metal mouth
Metal flesh lines
Striped red and pale
Dripping between thinning fingers and
thinning waist.
Bones extruding. Band aid seams.
Folded into folds and folded into folds.
Thicker and smaller and wider
Colors dark and eyes tired
Eyes alive again.
A thickness in the cheeks, I forgot I could have.
Alive and dead and alive
Moments folded, folded, folded
Today with the same baggy t-shirt
Today with the same blonde hair
Today with the bones and the eyes and the clothes
But swelling, smooth cheeks
Adult eyes, adult hands.
What of the mind that brought me here –
Left in the words of history
yet to be written. And it slips away in fingers
thinning out.