Ripped [TO BE PUBLISHED 2016]

3

 Ms. A believes in the power of healing through words. Good grammar and expansive vocabulary can get you through life. Or so she says.

I doodle on the front page of my notebook while Ms. A tries teaching us the difference between abstract pronouns and tangible ones. I wonder if that's how men get into her pants. A proper demonstration of English is always attractive.

I scribble a flower in blue ink, next to a bird with black wings. It's been two weeks of school and the only things I've got to show for it are half-hearted drawings in smeared ballpoint pen, and pencils that haven't even been sharpened. I'm destined for great things, you can tell.

When I was a real little girl, when I had pigtails and two parents and hope, I wanted to be an artist. I was talented, even bordering on prodigal. I flicked my wrists and boom, portraits and landscapes and abstract drawings spilled out onto plain white paper, then canvases, in acrylics and pastels and Venetian oils.

But then I screwed up/gave up/fucked myself over and my mother's dreams of SAIC and my father's hopes of Yale were shattered.

"Aspen."

I look up, but only slightly. Ms. A looks at me, eyebrows raised. For some reason she thinks that I'm smart. That could be dangerous. I better crush her expectations now. I glance at the board.

He wanted to die is written on the board in bright red Expo marker. The words "to die" are underlined in black. Ms. A sits, arms crossed.

"What part of speech is the underlined portion of the sentence?" she asks, slowly but not impatiently.

I hold back a smile. I just give a slight nod, a gesture that indicates either my lack of dedication or my lack of intelligence or both. She turns around, circles the words "to die" twice in black marker.

I write the sentence on the front cover of my notebook. I circle the words "to die". In this form of the sentence, "to die" is an infinitive. I bite my lip, the closest thing I can utter to a smile. Death is, literally, an infinitive.

How ironic.