Modified

Some call it body modification, some call it self-mutilation, whatever the case, there I was, allowing a stranger to carve script into my forearm, precisely two days after Christmas, precisely two years after first love's organ harvest, after written word first echoed back waves of nausea.

My hope, my need, was for looped Ls, dotted Is, crossed Ts to give me some meaning (I wasn't sure of their meaning, only their beauty - was this indicative of an old problem left unsolved?), some comfort - after all, every night I slept with stomach pressed to bed, neck twisted, muscles twitching, my pillow placed between head and the arms that acted as dream catchers.

"And this," announced my mother, prompting me at age three to soak up knowledge like a sponge, "is how you write, with your right." And then time curved onwards, looped upwards until mother's guiding hand was replaced with stranger's hand guiding needle upwards still.

I despise small talk, silence is the more articulate speaker, but through a series of how's the weather what's your name where're you from? the feedback looped around from last branded "L" and the stranger returned as Alex, "Virgin Islands - born and raised," and looking back now I ink in his face, overgrown eyebrows, upturned nose, bushy hair in low bun, welcoming face, like a mouse but not mousy, Mighty Mouse. I attributed the kindness in his eyes to the brown absorbing more light than my blue. Now, I thought, would be a good time to explain that I have a bitchy-looking relaxed face.

This statement punctuated invisible words with a gurgle of ha ha ha; the breath that proceeds laughter landed on arm's unfinished phrase. "See," said Alex, "I find it helps to ignore the pain if we have a conversation. You said you lived nearby earlier. Whereabouts?" But I didn't want to ignore the pain, more of an irritation, really, the needle puncturing my skin akin to drilling a cavity, but still I opened wide. (Self-mutilation it was.)

"Just a few blocks away. Roxbury Crossing." Fingers were placed in fingers as he pulled my arm erect, elbow softly landing to press on table. The words were beginning to form a spiral and I hoped that when the last line bled into the first that I could also begin again, that I could attach the numbers of that day, 1227, to connection in place of partition.

"I used to live there, too. Off of Parker Street." Parker Street. I thought of the steps I would retrace there soon, feet pausing in the igloos they formed hours before. That's my neighborhood, I told him, second right, a private drive called Folsom Avenue, follow the dreary misshapen cobblestones and you'll come to number four, right side, a townhouse also partitioned. It was, the landlord told us, the governor's mansion in the 19th century, overlooking the bay, but then water was filled with cement, and now a garden sits above that. We all, I think, are attempting to get back what we've lost.

Wind hit my face, breath changed direction from arm to mouth, kind eyes grew wide. "I used to live in number four! I lived in that strange bedroom upstairs in the back, behind the study. " Strange, indeed. The arm supported by elbow had been supporting my head in that room, surrounded by walls painted such a deep navy blue as to seem black, walls, I thought, that were absorbing my own light.

Alex then finished his last curve. He told me to stand up, look at my reflection, check out my modified arm. It was nearly two years to the minute since I read the letters that changed my life forever, that transferred emphasis from chest to head. Now I observed a different set of letters that shaped words that filled what was once a cavity. "You never told me what it means."

"It means that...that we're all going through the same cycle, the same things." Later, walking home, I noticed that my igloos had mutated, growing extra heels and toes.