It's only the 47th day of school

A Story by Nicole Rzh

My shoulder blades are the nose of Pinocchio. To un-chicken wing them would be to keep a straight posture but my will to

fix grinds against my spiny tire. I don't have Alzheimer's but I forget to stand tall at my melding juvenile age. I am aware of my rounded shoulders. I don't do anything about it. They sit like two lumps of slugs swelling in the damp sunlight. I scratch my hand a thawing red and my flesh is spotted with mosquito marks of nail. I'm averting the gaze of my blanket that I'm burrowing myself in. Averting the gaze of all but reality. The disappointment I find in myself that leaps onto my mother's eyes; I guess I was hungry. My lips form an innocent banana and my eyes barely peep open to a crescent but my stomach is full. Anorexia, sure. I've got different problems. Problems that are sown onto hip slimming shirts paraded with all the same pattern of flowers. The price of a hat on the shelf of advertisements. The price of wearing a hat too expensive for my own good. I wish I could come to school with sloppy ankle cut pants and runners from grade six. A face that didn't contemplate wearing makeup would be nice too. I don't have the body for a model and when I turn to sports, they run away. So I loaf my cheeks with 9-grain bread and a green smoothie. My tongue is jutting those healthy seeds from my gums and I'm still remembering that marshmallow. 90 calories for 6. 5 bucks for white clouds of diet death. 2 hours and they tell me to stop playing the lulling piano at midnight. 2 hours I tried to suppress the hot feeling under my eyes. Interesting how that feeling came from the brain? My thoughts are a broken record of why's. Why did I swallow that marshmallow? No maybe's, just the literal explanation of how it came to be. During those ticks of forever, my brain is converting into a flat-ironed shirt of the workforce. I make my custom schedules so I can mull over them in a robot fashion. I disregard those tiny accomplishments. Those tiny successes. Who even remembers those tiny successes? The successes that appeared as failures? I sure don't; apparently, all that matters is a a trophy or an A. You've got to. It's the little things in life that will shape you.