control my cravings; denying myself food was proof that I was stronger, better than most people. But I was lonely
for touch. Still, my own stiff regimen of stripping myself to the core and forcing myself to turn away from those curious
eyes made me feel proud, if alienated; I was trading my new-found power of flesh for something more trustworthy, something
pure.
Naturally skinny but not dangerously so, I trod the line between waif and child as I grew into a woman. And hunger became
my salvation; after a while, hunger, my sexless, undemanding suitor, was my only constant friend.
Site ot wound: Surgical incisions placed in the lines of least tissue are subject to minimal distraction and should heal promptly,
leaving a fine scar. In the face, these lines run at angles to the direction of underlying muscles and form the mask of facial
expression.
Below my eye, there are two almost invisible scars that remind me of my last days at school. They are all I have in the form
of concrete proof. Those weeks before coming to the clinic return to me only in fragments, like the rare shell-shocked moments
of lucidity after an accident. Reflexes failing, I have only pictures; I retain imprints of flying shards of bone, glass imploding
in my face. I remember the unseasonable heat of those early-April days and lying in bed watching the fan. I remember my shirt
soaked with sweat and, finally, the matted feathers floating around me like soft rain. I remember the last days with clarity
though: I spent them studying for finals, and virtually living at the library.
Day after day, I watched a serious-looking Korean boy, Thuy, his name was, sitting at the desk in front of me, sighing over
impossible hieroglyphic equations. Thuy and I always claimed the same spot in the library, at the same big desk under the
fluorescent lights. We liked to spread our books and papers all over the table as if the sheer display of all the notes we
had collected could secure us from the horribly uncertain fate of failure. The information piled up silently in our heads
and the panic of a new chapter would cause one of us to abandon a highlighter, cough, or get up for a walk, while the other
valiantly studied on, offering an empathetic nod. A forgotten key to the lexicon of the carotid artery, like a half-remembered
square root, would cause a minor gasp or leg spasm. When I looked up at him, at his waxy, pulled face, Thuy's eyes curled
at me in a kind of lonely smile. He liked to peer over into my books as I twirled my newly plaited hair (the dreads had gotten
so out of control I had finally had my hair professionally done at a Caribbean hairdresser's).
Thuy and I became manic partners in our quest for knowledge, for justification of the expensive university education we felt
our immigrant parents had squandered on us. We became soulmates during finals and, while trading strawberry liquorice for
rice balls, I asked him about engineering. He told me his father was a veterinarian and then put out his hand and taught me
how to say "friend" in Korean. Chingu.
I scribbled out English-composition papers for him when he complained he was flunking a rudimentary English class and he helped
me with chemistry; it seemed a fair enough trade. I regret now that I didn't get Thuy's number; he was my only friend through
that blurred time, besides Susan, and Greg, if you could count them as friends.
Towards the end of the semester, I became obsessed with the machinations of the human body, all the miracles that took place
every day to sustain us, to keep us clothed in this meretricious skin. The nightmare of unravelling, of death, seemed to be
everywhere and I thought if I could learn it, if I memorized the visceral cartography, I could be saved, somehow, from my
own nightmare of looking into the mirror to see my disassembled face with the lines undrawn, separate. I was beginning to
understand death, and that what moved us was
for touch. Still, my own stiff regimen of stripping myself to the core and forcing myself to turn away from those curious
eyes made me feel proud, if alienated; I was trading my new-found power of flesh for something more trustworthy, something
pure.
Naturally skinny but not dangerously so, I trod the line between waif and child as I grew into a woman. And hunger became
my salvation; after a while, hunger, my sexless, undemanding suitor, was my only constant friend.
Site ot wound: Surgical incisions placed in the lines of least tissue are subject to minimal distraction and should heal promptly,
leaving a fine scar. In the face, these lines run at angles to the direction of underlying muscles and form the mask of facial
expression.
Below my eye, there are two almost invisible scars that remind me of my last days at school. They are all I have in the form
of concrete proof. Those weeks before coming to the clinic return to me only in fragments, like the rare shell-shocked moments
of lucidity after an accident. Reflexes failing, I have only pictures; I retain imprints of flying shards of bone, glass imploding
in my face. I remember the unseasonable heat of those early-April days and lying in bed watching the fan. I remember my shirt
soaked with sweat and, finally, the matted feathers floating around me like soft rain. I remember the last days with clarity
though: I spent them studying for finals, and virtually living at the library.
Day after day, I watched a serious-looking Korean boy, Thuy, his name was, sitting at the desk in front of me, sighing over
impossible hieroglyphic equations. Thuy and I always claimed the same spot in the library, at the same big desk under the
fluorescent lights. We liked to spread our books and papers all over the table as if the sheer display of all the notes we
had collected could secure us from the horribly uncertain fate of failure. The information piled up silently in our heads
and the panic of a new chapter would cause one of us to abandon a highlighter, cough, or get up for a walk, while the other
valiantly studied on, offering an empathetic nod. A forgotten key to the lexicon of the carotid artery, like a half-remembered
square root, would cause a minor gasp or leg spasm. When I looked up at him, at his waxy, pulled face, Thuy's eyes curled
at me in a kind of lonely smile. He liked to peer over into my books as I twirled my newly plaited hair (the dreads had gotten
so out of control I had finally had my hair professionally done at a Caribbean hairdresser's).
Thuy and I became manic partners in our quest for knowledge, for justification of the expensive university education we felt
our immigrant parents had squandered on us. We became soulmates during finals and, while trading strawberry liquorice for
rice balls, I asked him about engineering. He told me his father was a veterinarian and then put out his hand and taught me
how to say "friend" in Korean. Chingu.
I scribbled out English-composition papers for him when he complained he was flunking a rudimentary English class and he helped
me with chemistry; it seemed a fair enough trade. I regret now that I didn't get Thuy's number; he was my only friend through
that blurred time, besides Susan, and Greg, if you could count them as friends.
Towards the end of the semester, I became obsessed with the machinations of the human body, all the miracles that took place
every day to sustain us, to keep us clothed in this meretricious skin. The nightmare of unravelling, of death, seemed to be
everywhere and I thought if I could learn it, if I memorized the visceral cartography, I could be saved, somehow, from my
own nightmare of looking into the mirror to see my disassembled face with the lines undrawn, separate. I was beginning to
understand death, and that what moved us was
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