i sat in a chair, legs double crossed in that way that always just makes it look like i have to pee. i don't. it just seems that way. i need to, have to cross them twice, once at the knees and then another time at the ankles because then i take up less space. also important is knotting my fists snugly in the opposite crooks of each elbow.
jittery and twitchy, i heard conversations all around me but couldn't understand any of them. yes, they were all in english. worse, someone was speaking to me but all i saw were lips moving and eyes scanning my face for the slightest trace of a reaction. numb. completely, utterly, entirely numb. absolute nothingness. except that i remember being scared and anxious and hypersensitive. jesus christ. numb, hypersensitive ----- make up your fucking mind, i thought.
then i stopped. thinking, that is. about myself.
a woman with a lovely painted face, sporting one of those godawful velour tracksuits that only j. lo would ever look halfway decent in, sat guarded with a thick binder in her lap and pain visibly weighing down her eyes. you could see it in the way she just stared at the hideous stained carpet.
another woman, with a too-huge coach bag and too-dyed blonde hair (i know, i'm one to talk, you're saying), passing around a picture of a too-small baby boy with thin wisps of feather light hair and unnaturally blue eyes, sought the approval of everyone. silently i heard her pleas and i nodded acceptance, wanted to voice the okayness of it all, but no words came out. they choked me instead.
hat pulled low, entirely shielding his bloodshot yet tear deprived eyes, long sleeved black harley davidson shirt covering otherwise very visibly tattooed arms, his shoulders hunched so far over that the topmost bone of his spine protruded from his neck, he diconnectedly spoke about the death of his 4 hour old son.
i stopped thinking and for once truly listened. even now i'm surprised that i'm able to find my voice at all.