While everyone writes she moves her pencil back and forth, a soft swishing that opens a valve and infuses her hand with speed and with something else, rising fast. She curls over her legal pad and scribbles hard, determined to dig into the center and unearth the thing, turns her pencil into a pick, deepens the trench with each pass as the outer pages curl and splay —a rose in bloom— she flings it onto the floor, alive and breathing heavy, chest heaving, eyes wild and wide open. I look back and forth from her face to the pain at her feet. Her breath slows and her eyes shut and little by little all the layers of torn paper are coming to rest, falling towards each other, trying to close around the wound.
Oh my… your a poem resonated in my body. Remembering the work I did in your writing class. How hard that was. How good that was how healing that was. Yes your words took me there and they were very powerful. Thank you.