Written by Dylan Angell
Durham, North Carolina

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I am learning to love the way the crow’s feet bend when I squint my eyes. 

I often take note of the red clouds that have peppered my knuckles since the day I flew beyond the bicycle my legs had straddled. My right cheek still reddens beneath my eye as if
blushing when cold weather reveals where the skin was torn. My feet are curved, turned, like a bird’s beak from buying used shoes a size too small, almost two decades ago.

These indentations feel like stains that can’t be erased by spit or seltzer. Some days they feel like a hand waving me on, saying “get ready, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

A few summers ago my ring was swallowed by the ocean, it was months until the pale contour faded from my finger. I never thought a ringless hand could cause one to feel nude. 

I am told my first steps were towards the mouth of a dog who when I balanced myself by placing my hands on its side, turned, taking my face into its mouth.

I learned to run soon after.

I remember standing on a wooden ladder with my sister on one side, I on the other. We were in the middle of the yard with nowhere to go. I imagine we only wanted a better view of the clouds. I looked down and saw a nail pass through my sister’s foot. She was smiling, her head turned upward. I pointed and when she looked down she began to weep.

I was 6 years old, she was 3 and I still think of that ladder whenever I am reminded that sometimes our pain can only be seen my others.

I have tattoos that are shared with people of whom I am no longer speaking. The images sit like continents on a map of territory once charted. An arrow, two letters for my home state, a bicycle, an elephant inside a snake, “come home” - all these images are atop my skin and the skin of others I have known.

These scars and tattoos often remind me of weather, feelings, sounds and faces that now seem distant. Some of these memories are now seen as “firsts” while others are clear “lasts”.

I remember my father pulling chunks of gravel from my palms after I slid on a gravel road while I was playing with a group of kids in my neighborhood. 

For days I held my hands out with my fingers open. 

I was prepared to catch myself, in case I were to fall again.