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Wite Out
The story of my life is written in pen.
Blue ink, to be completely certain
From one of those pens that Bic makes, one of those
terrible ones that you use and toss out
one of those ones they give out for free at offices and
at schools and in packs of 20 for a dollar.
And since all of my life has been written in pen,
there's no way I can erase my mistakes.
But I can't stand to see them looking at me
Staring, accusing.
Acting as if maybe I shoudn't have made them.
And they're there for all of humanity to see, all of my
mothers and fathers and sons and daughters
can look up at me and see these blaring black mistakes,
all smudged and misspelled, looking like some excerpt
from a seventh grader's cruddy notebook that's been
wasting away in their backpack for the past6 months.
Melted in places and rushed since it was done in the last period
of the day where they just wanted to get it over with
and be done.
So I bought a bottle of wite out,
mind that I hate the stuff,
for one, the scent is awful, it smells like they took
some lithium and some chlorine and some of those
other elements we're supposed to learn about in science
and blended them and then soaked them in the periodic table.
And for another, it looks so fake
like a fake way to cover up fakeness in all of its fake glory
something I thought I never wanted to use
but now it appears that I have to
since i've made mistakes I don't want anyone to see
or remember me by.
And I covered up my mistakes, all of them
only while wondering how many other people
not just from now, but from before
have concealed their lives
under a layer of wite-out.
Are we just reading lies?
No- I don't want to know
because imagine if general George Washington
really didn't lead the colonial army
or if Rosa Parks
did give up her seat on that bus
or if Helen Keller
wasn't actually blind
or if Hatshepsut
didn't lead Egypt
or if all these heroes
were lies.
And as I touched
the applicator to the paper
I felt something change
that I couldn't reverse, like
as if while I was wite-outing my life
something wite-outed inside of me.
So now, I'm perfectly happy!
Everything looks great!
My life is so wonderful!
It'll make a pleasant story!
But concealed under a layer of all that wite out
are enough mistakes
to write a totally different story.
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This article has 3 comments.
*Note- I'm not trying to bash out historical figures. I respect all of the wonderful heroes mentioned. :)
**Apologies for any historical inaccuracy. I did check my facts.
This piece is about the daily effort we make to hide from our mistakes- the ones that make us who we are, the ones that make us human.
I hope this piece can make you realize that your mistakes are part of who you are. Your story is not perfect, and it never should be. Once you admit to your mistakes, then you can really move on from them.
Thanks for reading!
~Orchid