girlhood.
These are small fingers.
Small fingers, smaller hands. If it is possible. As if the fingers are caught in a state of growth further than the rest of the hands; as if she grows from the outside in and not the inside out. She asked how she grew once; her mother told her that little men came to her fingers and toes while she was sleeping and tugged on them until they stretched. She is too young for growing pains. Still, she bears their brunt.
They drag red hood over the crown of her head. She has been kissed there, delicately kissed there, top lip pressing to infant hairs and bottom lip grazing her forehead. She is not much concerned with that; instead she concerns herself with other things, such as the fields around her house and the worries down the road. Down cobblestone path to the schoolhouse. There are others there, and mirrors pinned to brick walls, stained with water and soap and sweat and dirt. She has seen a mirror before.
Yes, a mirror. A mirror when it is hot out, when she wears only thin cotton tank top, tiny braided straps pulling it up under her arms. She sees herself after she has come inside, stares at body shaped like a bean more than anything else, stomach pushing against the fabric. It has little flowers woven into the pattern. How do they do that? How do they make fabric like that? She has seen many fabrics.
The swirling prints of quilts on her bed, so many, only pretty when they have been made with capable hands — her hands are not capable; they attempt to turn down the covers and fail, and she gives up quickly. Skirts upon skirts, dragging over bruised legs, captured in cold light on cobblestone steps.
Many fabrics. Because of that day she will avoid mirrors for a while. Wash them out of her mind and her memory, treating brain with bleach and lye soap and toweling it dry. The little face, caught in the mirror that sits in the foyer to the little cabin, which is not big enough to own a foyer without guilt, though it has one anyway. And it is a house, so perhaps it does not have guilt.
There are other faces, though, that are not her own. Ones not so odd to her, that do not stare back at her — that look at her not with the emotions caught in her eyes but with tenderness . . . hands that clasp her, nails that dig into her wrists, not painful. Smooth. Is it possible to look into a mirror with love? A window? A door? Is it possible to love when you can be seen — or to know that you are being seen? To see yourself? Both a brain treated and untreated with bleach and lye soap cannot cope with itself. Perhaps mirrors were meant to be a later creation.
Down the path she goes.
She has held baskets before. There is no good way to hold a basket; baskets are not like bags — they do not sit on hip or over shoulders, dangling toward the ground on a far too small body. One must switch them from hand to hand. She pretends it does not chafe her fingers and the lined skin on her palms as she takes it forward, down the path in the forest. The forest is beautiful in many places; mainly outside of it. Inside it is rather obstructive and concealing, and there is no springy grass, but merely a blanket of rough leaves . . . and how the wind howls through the trees. Massive trees. She wonders if you could, perhaps, show a tree a mirror. What does a tree think it looks like? Do saplings plan to look tall, or wide? Are they upset when they find they look quite like a bean? Do they look at other beans and feel pity?
And along she goes, carrying milk in her basket, and scones besides, scones that fill the mouth with dryness and sparse bits of sharp fruit. Scones that make you sit down after you eat them and consider them. Scones that make you want more, and make you regret, as if survival is so malicious. She knocks on the door to the cabin.
Does she know how this story ends? Do we? Shall I say that she goes inside, and they go through the motions, and the hands that clasp her wrists are not benign and smooth but sharp, digging into her, threatening to swallow her up? Do I say that the beast in the bed is shot? Do I say that his stomach is cut open with kitchen scissors? Perhaps I say he swallows her, and she does not come out. There are no scissors. There is no bullet. He is a wolf and she is a bean, torn tights cutting into her stomach.
Perhaps, she shall think, as furred paws grasp her underarms, as jaw unhinges to tear the fabric from her shoulders; perhaps it was not meant to have a happy ending. Perhaps some girls in her position shall make it back to the brick schoolhouse, and perhaps those with different shapes would not elicit such a reaction within the beast — perhaps it is that she is just a bean.
Perhaps beans are meant to be eaten.
These are small fingers.
Small fingers, smaller hands. If it is possible. As if the fingers are caught in a state of growth further than the rest of the hands; as if she grows from the outside in and not the inside out. She asked how she grew once; her mother told her that little men came to her fingers and toes while she was sleeping and tugged on them until they stretched. She is too young for growing pains. Still, she bears their brunt.
They drag red hood over the crown of her head. She has been kissed there, delicately kissed there, top lip pressing to infant hairs and bottom lip grazing her forehead. She is not much concerned with that; instead she concerns herself with other things, such as the fields around her house and the worries down the road. Down cobblestone path to the schoolhouse. There are others there, and mirrors pinned to brick walls, stained with water and soap and sweat and dirt. She has seen a mirror before.
Yes, a mirror. A mirror when it is hot out, when she wears only thin cotton tank top, tiny braided straps pulling it up under her arms. She sees herself after she has come inside, stares at body shaped like a bean more than anything else, stomach pushing against the fabric. It has little flowers woven into the pattern. How do they do that? How do they make fabric like that? She has seen many fabrics.
The swirling prints of quilts on her bed, so many, only pretty when they have been made with capable hands — her hands are not capable; they attempt to turn down the covers and fail, and she gives up quickly. Skirts upon skirts, dragging over bruised legs, captured in cold light on cobblestone steps.
Many fabrics. Because of that day she will avoid mirrors for a while. Wash them out of her mind and her memory, treating brain with bleach and lye soap and toweling it dry. The little face, caught in the mirror that sits in the foyer to the little cabin, which is not big enough to own a foyer without guilt, though it has one anyway. And it is a house, so perhaps it does not have guilt.
There are other faces, though, that are not her own. Ones not so odd to her, that do not stare back at her — that look at her not with the emotions caught in her eyes but with tenderness . . . hands that clasp her, nails that dig into her wrists, not painful. Smooth. Is it possible to look into a mirror with love? A window? A door? Is it possible to love when you can be seen — or to know that you are being seen? To see yourself? Both a brain treated and untreated with bleach and lye soap cannot cope with itself. Perhaps mirrors were meant to be a later creation.
Down the path she goes.
She has held baskets before. There is no good way to hold a basket; baskets are not like bags — they do not sit on hip or over shoulders, dangling toward the ground on a far too small body. One must switch them from hand to hand. She pretends it does not chafe her fingers and the lined skin on her palms as she takes it forward, down the path in the forest. The forest is beautiful in many places; mainly outside of it. Inside it is rather obstructive and concealing, and there is no springy grass, but merely a blanket of rough leaves . . . and how the wind howls through the trees. Massive trees. She wonders if you could, perhaps, show a tree a mirror. What does a tree think it looks like? Do saplings plan to look tall, or wide? Are they upset when they find they look quite like a bean? Do they look at other beans and feel pity?
And along she goes, carrying milk in her basket, and scones besides, scones that fill the mouth with dryness and sparse bits of sharp fruit. Scones that make you sit down after you eat them and consider them. Scones that make you want more, and make you regret, as if survival is so malicious. She knocks on the door to the cabin.
Does she know how this story ends? Do we? Shall I say that she goes inside, and they go through the motions, and the hands that clasp her wrists are not benign and smooth but sharp, digging into her, threatening to swallow her up? Do I say that the beast in the bed is shot? Do I say that his stomach is cut open with kitchen scissors? Perhaps I say he swallows her, and she does not come out. There are no scissors. There is no bullet. He is a wolf and she is a bean, torn tights cutting into her stomach.
Perhaps, she shall think, as furred paws grasp her underarms, as jaw unhinges to tear the fabric from her shoulders; perhaps it was not meant to have a happy ending. Perhaps some girls in her position shall make it back to the brick schoolhouse, and perhaps those with different shapes would not elicit such a reaction within the beast — perhaps it is that she is just a bean.
Perhaps beans are meant to be eaten.