Image Source: freerangestock
By Quincy Jackett, Staff Writer
When I was five, maybe six, I taught myself how to hold a pencil—not the right way, but the way that worked for me. The back of the pencil dug into the side of my ring finger, my pinky curled tight against my palm. My other fingers, including my thumb, bent awkwardly as I gripped the tip of the pencil. My fingers cramped, and a red mark formed on the side of my ring finger where the wood burrowed into it. I remember the tops of my fingers turning purple and blue from the pressure and the muscle in my wrist pulsating after only writing the six letters of my name. I was too shy to ask for help, and too embarrassed by the little red mark to draw any attention to my hands. So, I never said anything. Nothing at all.
When I was in the ninth grade, I’d walk the school halls for the first half of every math class. The teacher would stand in front of a green chalkboard with a white piece of chalk in his hand and call on students to answer questions from the textbook. I didn’t understand what he meant by slope on the first day of September, and it was too late now that it was mid-March. I was too shy then to ask for any help, and too humiliated now to explain why I didn’t ask earlier. My face would turn red and hot, dizziness grazed over my entire body as he looked around the room, deciding which pimpled face to spotlight. I would look down and quietly repeat under my breath, “Not me, not me.”
I didn’t want to ask for too much, eat too much, talk too much, see too much, take up too much space. I didn’t want them to call me “The Money Taker,” “The Spitfire,” “The Hog,” “The Ugly Fingers,” “The You Talk?” So, I kept quiet and never said anything. Nothing at all.
But a long time away, on one cold stormy night, I met a faceless man at an unnamed burger joint. We locked eyes, and soon that same cold night, mouths. I told him I’d write a poem about him as I flipped through the pages of a book on his coffee table called “How to Scare.” He told me I was awkward. My TA from my creative writing class told me my writing was awkward too. Maybe it’s because of the way I hold my pencil. Maybe it’s holding me back. Maybe that’s the reason why I can’t do math. My cramped right hand and blistered red ring finger is stopping me from mapping elements in the domain to the co-domain. Maybe the way I hold my pencil is the reason why I don’t like kissing and don’t like talking. Maybe that’s why I don’t like much of what this world has to offer.
And maybe that’s why when I woke up yesterday morning, I was forty and fat. I was still living in a hole and the word poor was burnt into my forehead. I stepped out of bed and landed in a pile of chip bags and old tissues. I heard “Honey!” coming from another room and I thought “Phew!” I shuffled my way through the trash on the floor, stepping over dirty clothes and torn-up notebooks. As I was making my way, the “Honey!” started to get louder and louder, but every step I took pushed me further back. I climbed a mountain of “I Just Need to Get” shoes, tripped over the “One Day I’ll Be Famous” tripod, landed on the half drawn “I’ll Finish It Tomorrow” portrait of grandma, grabbed on to the legs of the “It Will Make Me More Productive” Ikea desk to pull me up, and when I finally got to that door, the “Honey!” stopped its calling. And now I was too ashamed or wary to open the door, I thought maybe the calling wasn’t for me. “Not me, not me,” I had always whispered. So, I didn’t open the door. Instead, I watched as my feet sank into the ground beneath me and, of course, I was too shy to shout for help. So, I just let it happen.
