Ruo Wei gives us a powerful piece of prose centered on self-reflection. Although this is a deeply personal piece it prompts us all to look deeply at how own inner narratives play out, how time slips through us as we look for new meanings in not only things but ourselves. This is an exciting piece with which we are beginning to showcase our members' work, anyone can submit using our letterbox feature here on ICWS Online.
salt in the wound
i try not to think about the feelings that engulf me––salt in the wound, the clouds dyed pink at dusk, my friends in other countries. i am always waiting for something more. i am always looking back on the same nights, mellow and thick with the stench of my yearning, a creature too ghastly and too sacred to behold, unfit for a girl who only knows how to fit into small spaces. it’s unbecoming. i try not to think about it. i try not to let it get to me. it’s a game i play with myself, to affect indifference and maintain composure when all the time there is a scream building inside of me. i shelve my feelings for later and say i’ll get back to you, i’ll get back to you, and all along i confuse passivity for patience, patience for preparation––or is it the other way around? i look for something to do with my hands, something other than empty gestures. i wait for an apology, though i don’t know from whom, and for what. i wait for reassurance from everyone, for everything. i try not to think about that, too. they say admission is a form of weakness, and i am full of admissions unuttered and unutterable––what does that make me? i don’t think i want to know. they also say ignorance is bliss. knowing too much isn’t good for your sanity. i swallow hard pills every day, and i don’t think about it. i think it’ll save me––how? i’m not so sure. i try not to think about the insult to injury, the salt in the wound. the things my parents don’t know about. the things i can’t tell my friends. the hole inside of me that i’m not even sure is a hole, or what i’m supposed to fill it with. if i should try to write poetry about it. it’s such a cliché, these things. the hole and the not knowing and the knowing too much. the love stories that i think about all the time. the feelings that haunt me. i’ll get back to it, i promise, i’ll get back to it. in the meantime, i wait.
- r.w.
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