0. For a moment, become someone you’re not anymore. When you were twelve, your family came back from Russia without you, and on the fireplace laid the person who would replace you. You could break it in half and there’d be another one inside who also could be broken, and so forth. Your fists were strong, so you did. And you could. At every level a different person waited to come out. At the core you had no idea what you expected to see, but finally, you pick up a crude little miniature of a what you think is a person, the last of the hollow people. Like most things that taunt others daily, it was just so little, after all. You want to say sorry, almost, for taking it apart, but you don’t know if you should.
1. Remember the way the school bell rang during the best years of your life. This is a command, not a question. Paste was something that only existed then. Line leaders were bossy, impatient. Turn around and note the shapes the clouds made. It will only be that way once. Maybe you hated it then, because memories like thorns poked out at you and fell softly inwards, chanting, you are who you are, with the cruelty still and all else that had been forgotten, that had been sealed away. You tried so hard to forget who they made you into.
2. A dark ring around the iris means beauty; the shrinking of the pupils a shut lens of repulsion and worry. The bright black circle of fear measures three-sixty, exactly. All at once you’re afraid, in weakness, a little lost, lovesick, but the next second you’re facing a stranger, strangely. Turn a little to the side, honey. No, the other left. Hair falls to the floor, swiftly in concert, like feathers in flight. You don’t feel new. No, hold up the hand mirror. Yes, you have become someone else.