Mother Knows Best(book 1)

Entry #2

There's no good way to start an entry.

Even that, as I reread it, as my mind starts to carve the hell out of it—rewriting, erasing, replacing, filling in words and expressions, adding periods and subtracting them—just trying to drown out the imperfections, I end up back at that one statement.

That there is just simply, no good way to start an entry. See, my mind is at it again, trying to make things come out smoother, sound lively, sound poetic, but the words clump in my throat, they never make sense, they never end, they never begin right.

          My name is, never sounds right, it isn't the right prick of a needle that draws the blood out of someone, awakening the hairs of their nape, or even stirring up the insides of someone's mind and gut. But I pray, to whoever that reads, whoever that listens, that you got clasped by my statement, or else, I've failed you.

      You should know me by now, or at least, you will know me, I am, no, I was, Lilura, the girl who died—or is dying, or is, or has been dead—and I am, or will be, or is, the newer, better me.

       A feather, a thin bottle of ink, and tearing through the purity of the sheet, dark lines of words. Words and words and paragraphs and paragraphs. Experiences, life snippets, mistakes, failures, successes, blessings, essentially me. My anatomy, my mind, my soul, my heart, every piece of me as readable charcoal lines. All from my unsteady fingers, a splendid, soft autobiography.

      They, whoever they are to you, say, or said, or will continue to say, that everyone has a story. But I say, or I said, that I will not wait for anyone to tell mine. I would pick up whatever I must and use it to force myself to be thin readable charcoal lines. And so I wrote, despite the rules, the laws, that shut my voice out with an authority they greedily bestowed on themselves, I wrote. No, I write.

        They told, or tell, that people like me, you know, dark and poor and a savage, will never be anything. Will never amount to anything. So I scratched out their words, I sunk their charcoal lines, and I wrote for myself. It was scribbled, unsteady lines that taught my lips the meaning of pride, no, to be proud of myself.

     They said I could not read, that I should not, but I stood up, with three filthy wrapped sweets in a dirt-stained pocket of shabby overalls, and smiled, or what I thought was a smile, and said I could. Illiterate, yes, but literate by choice, and damn right, I made a choice.

        I stole books, empty cereal boxes, torn magazines, children pop-ups, dirty scripts, and I read. I read them all. I read the signs, the words on moving cars, I read the charcoal lines in comics, though I knew not the meaning or how they truly sounded, I read them. I read until I could not read anymore, and even still, through the heavy tiredness that possessed my limbs and young, weary mind, I read.

I read my way to education, funny sentence. But it flows out nice. Reading your way to it, but I did, I read to education and I found myself in a nice old, near death, brown desk in front of a lady, who knew I couldn't read and figured there was no point. She skipped me countless times, picking others, cleaner others, to read. It grew, like a child in woman's womb, a fire that has never been put out, not even till this day.

One day, I read, without her asking, without her even turning to pick, I read it. My tongue slipped at the end, but nevertheless, I read. And then, I left. When I got home, grandma Editha was proud, but still, give stern warnings about leaving without permission.

I started writing, at least clearer, when I grew older, my words—from blurry, to soft clarity, to the clearest it will ever be—they are the reasons why you read my autobiography, why you know me—or will know me—or will continue to know me. Essentially they are the reason for me. I wrote these little entries. These sheets crowded with words and nonsense talk to properly fill in gaps and questions and missing importance, that you, oh yes you, whoever you are, don't know how to fill.

Just polished additions of who, I, Lilura, is, or was.
But there is no better way to start an entry.

-Lilura