Soft

When things get really hard, if I'm laying in bed crying, or sitting in my car gripping the steering wheel trying to stop myself from screaming, or standing silently when words of hurt are no longer enough. In the moments that etch themselves red into my brain, in the people that wield the knives, in the scars from the place where blood was drawn from skin, it's in these moments where I find the most in myself. When a build up of little things leads to a torrent of tears, or a hurt person leads to an avalanche of anger, or a single misstep leads to a broken leg. It's strange how in the moments that move like molasses trying to flood a city below, best stick to the palisade of my heart, the concavities of my brain, the walls of my veins. It's strange how in these moments when my mind is an onslaught of emotions that I think of this broken record memory, soft crackling and all.

My sister came home from school excited to tell my dad about something that happened, but I got to him first and when I told him she got angry and took a three inch binder from her book bag and hit me across the face with it, the corner of it scraping over my left eye causing a cute scar that's still there. My dad obviously punished her for hitting me, and then he punished me for not letting her tell him the news that she was so excited about. So everyday for a week I had to sit at the end of "the hall", a strip of empty wall that seemed to be a thousand feet long to five year old Katherine. I was quite acquainted to "the hall" already for I spent a good portion of my childhood sitting at the end of it.

When I would sit there for my first hour I would pass time by knocking on the walls that surrounded me, the next hour spent putting my hands on one side and feet on the other and then holding myself up horizontally for as long as possible, the last hour was spent sitting and staring. I would lean against the corner of the wall and look at the light that illuminated the end. Then I would look at the sharp corners of the house. The door jams, the hard angles of the hardwood, the popcorn ceiling abruptly meeting the white walls. Then after staring at them so intently, I would just let it all go. I would soften my sight. I would let my eyes fall out of focus, turning the world into an edifice of smudges. Even the sharpest object would turn soft when I let it all go. Somehow this stuck with me and throughout the next eleven years it's how I've gotten through everything. When life gets too hard, the turns too sharp, the angles too keen, I soften it a bit.

Yesterday when I sat in my car, streams of anger running down my face, heartstrings tugging at the right side of my body, brainwaves carrying the left, my hands already raw from palms slamming against the hard black wheel. I leaned my head back in an attempt to swallow a sob that had been trying to escape my lips, and for a second the tears stopped, my heartbeat slowed, the aches in my body ceased, and the waves in my brain turned into ripples. I leaned up and rested my head on my wheel and just let it go. When I sat back up the world was a painting of colorful smudges, it was soft. It didn't stop more tears from puddling on my lap, but it stopped them from being filled with same poisonous bleach that burnt my skin as each drop rolled down my face. It didn't stop my hurt or ease the pain away, it was merely a shot of morphine that gave me time to soften my mind once more.