Bleeding

I’ve sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  I sit and I stare at a blank page and the blinking cursor.  I hate that blinking cursor, waiting, watching.  I hate it because it has seen me cry, it has seen emotions fly out of my heart onto the keys of my laptop, it knows that I can write.  The blinking cursor watches as I sit in front of a blank paper and cry.  It waits and it blinks, hoping that I can cry through it onto the paper, waiting for me to create something beautiful.  But all I do is weep, because it hurts to write, and I don’t like being hurt.  

It hurts to write because writing was once easy.  Until this year, writing was easy because I could reach inside myself and feel with depth without feeling damaged.  Until this year, writing was easy because I had nothing to cry about.  Until this year, writing was my passion.  
This year it hurts to reach inside my heart.  
It hurts to reach past my ribcage, push aside my nerves and muscles and tendons, and dig in my soul for words on a page. 
 I could type words without feeling, but that isn’t really writing.  I was told, “Writing is simple.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,”  
I wish I could bleed; I wish that I didn’t feel like I don’t have any blood to spare.  
I wish that I could feel without hurting, write without thinking, love without asking, but that’s not how it works.

I have sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  I sometimes get some words on the page, but I’m too long-winded, because when I start bleeding I 
feel 
like 
I 
can’t 
stop.  I’ll sit and cry, praying for the bleeding to stop.  But it doesn’t stop, and the most I can do is ignore it.  The most I can do is keep the blood off the paper, not tell my teacher how much I am really dying inside.  The most I can do is pray that I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and the bleeding will be stopped.  The most I can do is hope that it’s a dream, and I’ll wake up and my essay will be finished.  

It isn’t her fault, and I don’t think she knows that she asks me to go home and bring two pages of blood to class next time.  And it doesn’t matter if it’s a comma or a period, because it’s my blood; and I don’t bleed with commas in the right places.  Sometimes it is easy, because some scars are worth having.  Sometimes I can sit down and feel my brother next to me.  I feel like I am sitting at Panda Express on a Monday night.  Sometimes I can bleed on a paper and make art.  Sometimes the bleeding is messy, and it ends up looking like a woman with runny mascara, trying to talk over the podium at church.  Sometimes it’s messy hair and jumbled words, because I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling.

I sat down to write it upwards of seven times.  Thinking each time that it would be the last.  I sat down to write, telling myself, “I told her that I would get it done this time.”  I sometimes get some words on the page, but mostly I see that blinking cursor.  I see the cursor and it sees me, blinking, it waits for me to bleed again.

The Notorious MSG

I can’t remember the first time I tried it.  I like to imagine that I toddled over to the Panda Express counter, and my mom, who ordered for me, forced me to eat another meal.  I like to imagine a remarkable experience when I first tasted it, fireworks going off on my tastebuds, hallucinations about buying fried rice from a chinese street vendor. 

 But I imagine it wasn’t special, because after all, I was sitting in the food court at University Mall.  I don’t remember any angels descending, telling me that Panda Express fried rice is the food of the Gods.  I don’t remember thinking it was tasty.  I do remember the day that I decided that I love it.

I had just gotten off work at the carwash and I joined my family at a play.  The second act came around and my stomach growled loudly.  My younger brother Tanner and I quietly “went to the bathroom.”  We quickly made our way to Panda Express.  As we walked through the door I realized how late it was,  a disgruntled employee quickly locked the door behind us.  I apologized for being the last in, and I think that did well in easing the tension of the room.  A short hispanic teenager stood behind the counter, ready to take our orders.  He was new, I knew this because I recognized everybody else in the storefront.  He wore a nametag so I quickly struck up conversation, “Hey Saul, sorry for coming in so late.” “No problem,” he said, “but thank you, because most people wouldn’t apologize.”  I knew that I would like this guy.  I proceeded to tell him to be generous with his scoops of fried rice, he was.  

I asked where we should sit, and he pointed to a table near the counter.  Tanner and I sat down and started to eat.  Saul walked around the counter and sat with us; we talked about his future, he told us about his mother’s hospital bills.  Tanner and I talked about German class, we talked about our mutual friends.  That night I learned that minimum wage Panda Express employees have stories, and I learned that it is alright to be friends with my younger brother.  So in truth, it wasn’t about the fried rice (though I’ll never claim that).  I love Panda Express because it was my escape.  I would ask Saul which shifts he was working so that Tanner and I could come and get our fried rice from him.  Now I go alone, because Tanner isn’t here and Saul moved away.  

It takes a integrity to be able to make good food under a fast food brand.  It is that integrity that makes Panda Express fried rice so good.  If you never looked behind the counter, you would think that the fried rice was shipped in boxes from a factory, and warmed up in a microwave.  If you look behind the counter, you will see an asian man with a pony-tail wokking your rice by hand.  Each worker has their own particular touch, and puts varying amounts of soy sauce and salt in a batch.  So if you are going to the Panda Express on State Street in Lindon, I would recommend going between the hours of 1 and 7.  

Fried rice is misleading, it is a food that screams “I’m mediocre at best,” but the fried egg, the diced carrots, and the peas all orchestrate a symphony of textures.  I won’t lie, the peas taste like the eggs, which taste like the carrots, but that’s the beauty of fried rice.  Somehow, in a large wok flipped by an asian man, all the ingredients taste the same.  They taste like a good, last conversation with my little brother.  They taste like laughing with Saul about his bad grades in high school.  In short, fried rice tastes like friendship.

the kleenex box

Quietly in the corner, lurking, waiting, sits the kleenex box.  It doesn't get much attention, gathering dust and malice, waiting to strike.  

Underneath the kitschy design printed on the cardboard shell, 

the kleenex box is an alligator - waiting to bite a hand, to twist it's victim to the ground in pain.  

Sitting inanimate in the corner, telling everyone that a cute little cube couldn't possibly have teeth. Occasionally someone will tempt the box, reaching for a tissue and retreating quickly away to the other side of the room.  The box could bite that hand, but instead it waits.



That flowery box could bite any hand, could turn an innocent reach for a tissue into crippling despair.  It could bite the hand of the boy that got skis for his birthday.  It could bite the hand of the girl that got the chickens she always wanted.  It could bite the hand of the man with the beautiful wife, or the woman who never frowned.  But the tissue box is cruel, and it waits for his hand.  


It waits for the hand of the boy coming home to nobody.  It waits for the hand of the boy who had to stop learning to have fun so he could learn to be a man.  It waits for the hand of the boy who has not seen his family in 154 days.  

The kleenex box bites the boy because of all the times he came home and listened to music with his brother.  It bites the boy because of all the lessons he was taught by his father.  It bites the boy because his mother loved him.  It bites the boy because his sister secretly made him smile.  It bites the boy because the boy had everything, and he never even glanced toward the tissue box.  It bites the boy because he believed that it did not have teeth.

The kleenex box bit, and it left it's teeth on the floor next to the boy.  The boy who can't wake up in the morning, the boy who can't write like he used to, the boy who can't remember what it was like to have parents. The box bit the boy who has nothing anymore.