tassel

I WAS THIRTEEN WHEN I first attempted to kill myself. Saying attempted an attempt will be more accurate, though. I went to the kitchen to pick up the sharpest knife that could easily slit my wrists, but I put it back after staring at the blade for half an hour. I'm not sure what made me stop then, but maybe I'd like to recollect it right now, because I happen to be standing in my balcony with one of my legs raised onto the railing, staring at the concrete road four floors below. I've made up my mind that I won't jump if I can remember why I hadn't bled myself to death at that time.

What am I doing here? I think. My parents haven't fought yet tonight. People at school were nice too. Overly nice, for that matter.

And I guess that's it. I have possibly developed a resistance to people being nice because I know it's going to be something else tomorrow. It's always something else tomorrow. And maybe I'm here because I don't like the repeating tomorrows.

As I lean on the bars, I recall random memories one after the other. A vague one of yesterday's comes too, and I'm suddenly so furious, I scream out loud inside my head. My fingers almost slip.

"Your acting like this because of your goddamn hormonal rush," my mother shouted at me yesterday, when I kept interfering in between her and Dad fighting. Dad agreed with her and yelled the same.

"Hormones." I don't particularly hate that word, but I hate it when some people say it like it's the heaviest load they've ever carried. Yes, maybe a person is radioactive because of their raging hormones. But why the fuck is it wrong to feel like that? Doesn't every one undergo hormonal changes at some point? So why are some people discriminated by the amount of hormones that their bodies carry?

I flip my other leg over and bring it outside the balcony. I carefully stand on the tiny extension of the cement, looking into my house. Luckily, the curtains are drawn, so my parents can't see what I'm doing. If they did, they'd probably panic and accidentally throw me off. The second part's not too bad, but I don't want to turn my parent into murderers.

Then I scream in my head again. It makes my body writhe a bit, and my palms pain from clutching onto the grill. I feel my neck veins popping from my internal screeching. When I can't breathe anymore, I open my eyes and throw my head backwards, looking down and around. There's a couple leisurely strolling below. I pray that they don't notice me, which they don't.

My eyes drift upwards. The sky's lit dimly violet, and it's a very cloudy day again. I like this view; it feels like I'm lying in a room with the sky as the ceiling.

Suddenly, I remember why I didn't slash my wrists that night. 

It was homework. I had to complete my book report on The Catcher in the Rye by the next day. I didn't die because I liked the book and wanted to finish reading it. And after reading it, I momentarily forgot that I wanted to die.

The cold air's starting to freeze my ears, and I'm beginning to realize what I am exactly doing. Before anyone sees me, I carefully go back to the interior of the balcony, and stand with my feet planted in the same spot for some time. I can hear my pulse ringing in my body as if I'm a human heartbeat.

"Tassel, come have dinner!" Mom shouts. Her voice sounds awfully near. I slowly process her words and head into the house with a wobbly gait. As soon as I enter the room, a warm smell of roasted meat reaches me. It makes me less shaky.

This was my eleventh attempt at an attempt, I count, when I'm almost back into my senses.

Mom studies my face when I enter the kitchen. Her eyes enlarge. "You look so pale, Tassel." She pulls out a chair and seats me on it, checking my temperature. "You're a little hot. Wait, I'll get you a jacket."

I nod and she storms off into my room, returning with a furry jacket I normally never wear. "Not that one," I argue. I'm literally croaking.

"Just put it on," she says, putting it on me.

Dad comes a few moments later. He looks at me in the furry jacket and then at my mom. "Is she okay?"

"She's got a slight fever," she informs, setting out a beautiful roast chicken right in front of me. I take a whiff of the butter it's covered by.

"I keep telling you to not go out into the balcony when it's cold," Dad scolds, patting my hand away when it reaches for the leg of the chicken. "Don't go out too much during fall and winter, okay?"

"Okay," I say, replacing my hand on the fur of my jacket. It's silky like Mom's hair. It smells faintly of her too, and that's nice.

Mom suddenly plops a glass of milk beside my plate, making me frown. It's a stupid remedy that's run down generation after generation in her family - giving warm milk to help fever and colds. It doesn't actually work. I'm not sure if I'll be passing it on to my offspring if I ever have any.

Mom glares at me until I hold the glass. I take it close to my lips and swallow less than a mouthful. It doesn't taste good. It never tastes good to me. "Why's the milk so thick?" I ask, attempting to make an excuse.

"Maybe the cow was constipated," Dad answers without missing a beat.

Mom and I laugh. "Dad! Cows don't poop milk!" I almost shout.

We're laughing wildly by this point. All of us. And it feels so good, so warm. So much warmer than this glass of milk.

And I think, if these are the repeating tomorrows, I'll maybe look forward to tomorrow everyday.

|| ~~~~~ ||

I sit in my room looking at a blank page of my Physics notebook. I feel like writing a poem, but I'm not sure where to start. Maybe I'll write something about what I was just doing. Balancing at the edge of my life.

I write down the first line that comes to my head. 

Some sit pretty, some stand in front of tyranny

It's good, but it isn't first-line material. I think harder, jotting down a few more random lines. Ten minutes later, I'm watching more then twenty sentences lined all over the page, making less to no sense. 

It makes my head feel cramped, so I I turn into an empty page. I pick my favourite lines from the messy array and copy them there. There's exactly ten. A little satisfied, I begin arranging them to make something reasonably good. After sometime, I look at the product. I smile. This looks so final. I read it once again from top to bottom after giving it a suitable title.

At the edge

Life is a chain reaction set off from birth

The reactions that occur in between decide our worth

Some at the peak, some at the edge of a balcony, 

Some sit pretty, some stand in front of tyranny

And maybe I apply to the second world

Because I feel all heated, all-over burned

Wherever I look, I see purple-lit voids

Where I'm screeching out without any noise

No point in holding on, I think, just let go

But for some reason, I push a stronger hold.

I feel like showing it to someone. I secretly get Dad's phone from the living room and take a photo of it, pressing on the share button from the gallery. There's so many people to sent to, but I try thinking of someone who'll like it. Scrolling, I smile when Arashi's name comes.

His mother liked poems, didn't she?

|| ~~~~~ ||

The weather is cold, and it's screaming out the approaching winter season. I put my hands in the pocket of my jacket for warmth. The atmosphere around Portmouth High makes me feel colder. This isn't a weather I really vibe with. "I don't feel like studying today," I announce, stretching my legs out.

"Finally," Arashi says, dropping his pen. I laugh.

I saw Arashi crying under the mango tree that day. I didn't dare take a step to comfort him. He looked like he needed to get all that out, and I had a feeling that if I'd gotten closer, he'd stop crying altogether.

I contemplate asking why he was crying. He might've been hurting about something. But then again, he seems much happier now. Will I ruin his mood if I ask him?

I decide I won't. If he wanted to cry alone, it's better to leave that question alone.

"What do we do now?" I ask him. It's pretty much a useless throw. Arashi is a person who's more interested in getting ideas from others than his own brain. I've noticed he likes to follow along a lot. But if he doesn't like the thing he's following along, he'll definitely object. And the more I think of that attribute of his, it dawns to me that it's more of a positive than negative one. It's like he experiments with different stuff, but has enough control over himself to know whether the experiment suits him or not.

I'm a little jealous, because sometimes I wish I have a control on things I'm experimenting over.

"What do you want to do?" he asks. I smile. As expected.

"Run?" I ask with a laugh.

"No way," he answers with a laugh. "Today is a lazy day."

"It feels like a lazy day indeed," I agree.

My gaze drifts towards the soccer grounds. On one of them, there's gym class going on. The school team is practicing on the other, louder than the entire class playing adjacent to them. Lance is there too. He's gotten permission to skip class because they have a match next Tuesday.

Lance is suddenly in hold of the ball. There's way too many defenders enclosing on him, so he quickly acts and passes on the ball, probably to someone called Marc Holland. Marc passes it back to Lance, and this time he dashes off with it. Suddenly, he's in front of the goal, readying a shoot - and then he shoots. The ball grazes the bar on top and flies off the ground.

I can almost hear the entire team sigh. "Damn," I sigh along with them.

"What?" asks Arashi.

"I was watching the game."

He turns and nods. "Oh. I don't really like soccer."

Neither do I, I want to say. I just like watching Lance play it.

"Hey, isn't it that girl?" Arashi points with his chin all of a sudden.

I turn to see which girl he's talking about. "Yeah, that girl. She's Denna."

Denna comes to us, greeting. "I watched The Boss Baby yesterday. I think I like it."

"Is it worth a watch?" I ask. 

"It is. It's a good movie when you're taking a break."

"Ah, I might watch it."

"Go ahead."

Denna starts to tell me the gist of the story, excluding spoilers and the ending. After she explains, I decide this movie isn't for me. I'll probably just read its plot off Wikipedia and use it for further discussions with her, because she seems to like the movie a lot.

"Oh, isn't that Lance?" she asks, signaling toward the soccer ground. 

"Yeah, it is," I say without even looking. 

Back in middle school, Denna had a crush on Lance. She never said it, but everyone knew it. It was that obvious. And the only reason that fact bothered me then was because Lance seemed to like her too. Not anymore, though. I'm pretty sure he likes me now. Mostly.

I divert that thought. Denna's finally being nice to me again, and there's no reason for me to start being jealous of her now. "How's you're Art classes -or whatever classes you guys have- going on?"

Denna smiles magnanimously. "Really good. We're trying to paint full-body sketches of our classmates now. My partner's this girl named Geneva. She's really skinny, so it's kind of easy for me to draw her edges."

She makes me smile. This Denna who likes painting skinny Geneva reminds me of the Denna who liked doodling animals on my pants.

"The best sketch will be put up on the reception for a week," she squeals, excited. "If I fill in some colour, my drawing might have a chance."

"If it is put up, take me to see it," I suggest.

"Of course! I would've taken you otherwise." She checks her phone. "You know what, there's ten minutes left for lunch. How about we go now?"

I think about it, but not much. "Sounds good. Right Arashi?"

When Denna and I turn to Arashi, we softly laugh. He's resting himself on the tree trunk, quietly sleeping. 

"Another day," I say to Denna.

She frowns for a second. "You can leave him here. It's only ten minutes."

"No," I say, smiling. "I'll feel guilty."

"Another day then," she gives in. She stands up, looks at the soccer ground again, and leaves to go to the Art Section of Portmouth. Her hands wave at me until she's invisible.

I look at Arashi. His head is lopsided, and he's resting his body weight on his fractured hand. Delicately, I crawl to him without making a sound, and carefully shift his body towards the other side. I hold him in that position while I bring his bag. Then I let him carefully fall on it. His mouth opens and closes, like he's just uttered some inaudible words, and I go back to my place noiselessly again.

I watch him sleep, seeing his chest rise and fall with his even breaths. I smile.

He doesn't look like he's crying anymore.