pronouns | they

i was 7 years old, in first grade. my mother asked me not to touch her new earrings because the oils in my hands would erode her jewellery. and that was the first time someone told me that my hands were weapons, capable of destruction. when i was in second grade, we planted sunflowers everywhere. the garden came alive, and even the oldest of trees seemed to smile at us because happiness was an ocean and we were drowning. that was the first time i realised that these hands were powerful weapons, capable of creation. they say that flowers grow when the earth laughs. they will tell you that the world is an imperfect place. they said that the words flying off of my tongue should be clung to an older soul; meanwhile, those same words were singeing the backs of their throats. they told me that i was too young to know that without them telling me first. they will tell you that the world is filled with things so wicked that even the wildest of imaginations couldn't fabricate. i don't know who “they” is. but i do know that my art teacher is nothing like me; she loves poetry. so do i. yesterday, she read us the titles of 37 different poems, all about the galaxy. without merely a pause between breaths, she reads us a quote from some old (probably dead) white guy. it went a little like, “without symbols, the art of literature would be dead; even words are symbols for something.”. she asks our class to draw self-portraits, then multiply them with value to create a 3D effect. it felt like this 2D body was already enough for me, i was still fixing my own atrocity. i can't start over again or else i’ll never finish on time. value times zero still equals nothing. i know she's not a math teacher, but solving me wasn’t very difficult because i was always my own paradox; with either two answers or none. she had the audacity to call me a poem, which didn't make sense to me because i love poetry, but I'd never be able to love something that i didn't acknowledge existed in the first place, like pluto or god. nevertheless, i did not draw her pretty girl face, or pretty girl hair, or pretty girl lips. i drew for her my galaxy, filled with all the planets we refuse to recognise. i never saw one in my own eyes, and i never thought to look in anyone else’s because they say that eyes are the windows to the soul, and momma taught me that it wasn't nice to peep. this milkyway is there only thing that looks like me: so much of everything. it holds the flesh of all we’ll never discover and the bones of everything we will, yet people still deem it empty. when i was in third grade, they told us that we owe our existence to a dying star in the sky. i left class that day thinking that Marilyn Monroe was God. when i was in first grade, i thought quotes were made of pixie dust. my theatre teacher told me that if i believed hard enough, they would make me fly. she told me they were drops of rainwater, and if i let them, they'd seep into my brain. the storm they masked themselves in was just a detour for the thunder in my heart. that's how flowers grow. my art teacher told us to draw pictures of who we wanted to be when we grew up. i didn't know whether to construct a pen or a princess. that's what all my friends were drawing; pretty girl princesses. my favourite princess was ariel, but i never wanted to cut off my tongue for anyone. i guess actions really do speak louder than words; Prince Eric didn't even realise it, but when Ariel lost her pretty girl princess voice, he had been indulged in the loudest of sweet silences. when i was in second grade, we planted sunflowers. they say that flowers grow when the earth laughs. i didn't mean to tickle her with my words, but i never wanted to cut off my tongue for anyone. the sunflowers grew so high, they blocked the sun. they never told me that something so beautiful could cause so much destruction. yesterday, my art teacher asked us to draw self-portraits. i did not draw for her pen, or pretty girl, or princess, or galaxy. i drew for her sunflower because i was young enough to know that the storm would come some day. they didn't know that something so beautiful could cause so much destruction. they don’t know who “i” is.