Every once in a while on Facebook I see posts from family members containing this Word Porn. Naturally, anyone would think of standard and colorful lexicon such as dirty sanchez and scat, teabag, golden shower and the like when faced with the boldness of such a posts title. But it isn't. It's the good stuff people as smart as you or I have yet to discover. Vibrant words like sillage, the smell a person leaves behind or the area they are in, and alexithymia which is the inability to describe emotions in a verbal manner. Side note: my husband suffers from alexithymia. Not that it was important for you to know this, in fact this makes us even more a perfect pair as I have absolutely no trouble describing my emotions verbally. So how am I not a writing creatively?
Word Porn. Yes. You can follow it on Facebook for your dosage of beyond SAT words and inspirational quotes, one in particular I'm going to be adopting thanks to Ironman (Robert Downey Jr.) himself, "Listen. Smile. Agree. Then do whatever the fuck you were going to do anyway."
I mention this quote because as I've been thinking about what I have accomplished in my life sans writing I've remembered the pain of childhood and adolescence, like being told I was inconspicuous by a classmate I had a crush on during choir practice amongst others. But this has stuck with me for a majority of my life outside of school because of the things I should have said back to this bottom-feeder. I can even remember how it was said to me, the smell of incense wafting through the cold front pews of the church we sang in and, how he came to sit in the pew behind excited about his so-called discovery of me in his vocabulary book.
"Do you know what you are?" He asked me. I looked back at his face. He looked like a real life cherub with dirty blonde hair and blue green eyes that melted me to my core with his every glare. Somehow I would ignore his glares were out of disdain and disgust for my awkward appearance.
I was happy to know what he thought I was. Maybe he would say he thought I had pretty eyes underneath my bold eyebrows. That he could see the light freckles scattered across my face and, even stained with calcium deposits on my front teeth, my smile was delightful.
He didn't.
He leaned in close to my face and told me he thought I was inconspicuous.
"What does that mean?" I asked hoping it was nicely meant.
"It means you are not noticeable, or even attractive," he smirked. Then he sat back and asked me to turn around. But, instead of turning around and armed with the wit and sauce of my 31 year old self, this is what I should have said:
"Oh. I'm sorry you find me unnoticeable and unattractive. Maybe it's easy to cut me down because you think I like everything about you. But the truth is I too am making discoveries."
Watching his brows furrow unable to understand what was beginning to happen, I would continue.
"Until this very moment, the sight of you would make me feel like butterflies in my stomach were coming to life. I admit I find you attractive. I think you have beautiful eyes. But right now, not a second after you attempted to make mince meat of me with your vocabulary word, I discovered exactly how you make me feel. Those flutters I think are butterflies is really the adrenaline pumping through my body in anticipation. Anticipation that I would for once be able to defend myself so you could stop taking out the fact you are being bullied on me. I'm so sorry that your classmates think you are a cancer to be extinguished. They think that of me too, but you don't see me taking that out on you or anyone else. I think we should unite in solidarity. That means unity of a group or a class based on a community of interests and standards. For now, I am your mirror. Every time you think you break me, you add on years of skewed perspective; you are just as bad as those who want you broken, meanwhile I just think it would be nice to be friends."
I would have turned around knowing I had him. I wouldn't have cared how long it would've take. For him to figure out he was truly beneath me. But that didn't happen. I did turn around and I sang through choir practice with his vocabulary dagger penetrating my chest.
Years later, a writing teacher talked about using memory as a tool, forming the taste and feel of a piece. I wish the instructor said this, your memories especially the bad become demons that can haunt your dreams. They haunt, they jab. They are only looking for your attention.
So, play with them.
P. S. I saw you, Andrew St.John on CSI Miami. You looked old for a high school student but you made an excellent cadaver. Sincerely Jezrie Marcano, aged 13.
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