87
" Do you have any memories at all that are making you think this? Did anything weird happen to you?” I ask through stiff breaths. Like, I don’t know, an uncle sneaking into your room?
“No,” she says pointedly. “But that’s what I mean—just because I can’t remember anything doesn’t mean nothing ever happened. When I was younger, I was very attractive and very naive. I didn’t even know there were mean people in the world. Someone could have taken advantage of that.”
WHAT I WANT TO SAY:
“Nobody took advantage of you, nobody molested you, and you don’t have any repressed memories of your childhood. I’m the child who was hurt, not you. You didn’t believe me, but now I’m supposed to believe that you’re worried something ‘might’ have happened to you, even though you don’t have any reason to think that whatsoever? Why are you trying to diminish the horrible thing that happened to me and make it about you?”
WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY:
Exactly that. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman , Starfish
90
" The biggest canvas is wider than my arm span. It’s bursting with so much color it looks like a graffiti artist got too excited with a spray can.
But it’s my story, told in brushstrokes and acrylic paint.
There's Jamie and me as children, hiding in trees and searching for ladybugs. There's me alone, searching for stars in the dark. There's my mom, the queen of the starfish, existing in a tornado of glitter that poisons anything else it touches. There are my brothers and me, living on opposite sides of a triangle, experiencing the same things but never together. There's my dad, never knowing or doing as much as he should but trying to fix the poison all the same. There's Hiroshi, painting my hands so I can paint my voice. There's me split in half—Japanese and white—stitching myself together again because I am whole only when I’ve embraced the true beauty of my heritage.
And there's Jamie and me in June, the sun on our faces and the sand at our feet, finding each other again after all those years. Our lives trail around us, sometimes broken and sometimes beautiful, but all puzzled and tangled up into the lump that is us.
We fit together not because we need each other, but because we choose each other.
Our friendship was always our choice. Love was a natural progression.
Jamie stares at the painting for so long that I think the room actually starts to get darker. When he turns to face me, he looks relieved. Calm.
Jamie turns back to the painting.
We don’t need words. We just know.
Our fingers find each other’s. "
― Akemi Dawn Bowman , Starfish
