Pen Name

I was the kind of kid my parents lovingly refered to as "shy" though a more apt description may have been "terrified". Of my dad's sixth grade students.

Of that one dog that always barked at me...

of failure.

I switched schools at the beginning of second grade.

I remember sitting alone on the bus that first morning when it turned onto a dirt road, slamming my forehead against the cold glass. I clutched my backpack to my chest, tracing the outlines of its pink zippers with a trembling fingertip, looking towards the sky as I tried to desperately blink back tears.

A second day passed. Nothing changed... though I learned how to bury my face in a pillow to stifle my sobs at night.

My parents saw me as their happy little girl. What kind of monster would mess that up with something as fleeting as tears?

So I continued my days of silence. A week passed.

I don't know why she sat next to me. The girl with dandelion-fuzz hair that never seemed to lay quite flat on her head. The girl with eyes that were always wide, taking in every piece of the ordinary. But it was never ordinary. Not to her, at least.

The ravens flitting through the bushes outside of the bus were bad omens.

The shadows of trees were beasts, ready to strike if we made the wrong move.

She scared me at first, you know.

But as she kept perching on the bus seat next to me fear faded to curiosity, and we begain to play.

Little games at first, with horses and meadows and happy endings.

Then they got darker. We would play the same game for a weeks worth of bus rides, only beginning anew when a villain cowered in terror at our feet.

And there, crammed between faux leather seat covers and the smell of grade school crayons, I forgot to wear my mask. The mask of manufactured smiles and pretty thoughts.

We used to build a wall out of backpacks and coats, isolating ourselves from the outside world as we became the heroes we had been told we could never be... if only for the twenty minutes between the school and her mom's open arms.

She always insisted that I have an allias. All the superheroes in the movies did, didn't they?

I thought 'Dove' was nice. A pretty bird. A gentle bird. One that could fly from its prision.

But as the years passed she began to teach me that one must not always flee. And suddenly, I no longer wanted to be the fragile creature at the periphery of our afternoon playtime. She was always so bold. Quick to strike.

Why couldn't I be like that?

Because I was the good kid. The quiet kid. But the mask I had began taking off in front of her was falling now, sliding from my face until it hit the ground below, shattering to slivers of glass that hurt more to press back upon my cheeks than to leave on the ground.

So I left them.

Perhaps being authentic was more important than being than quiet.

And our games evolved. Two warriors, striking in unison. I changed the name of my charachter, then, to 'Raptor.' It seemed fierce. The name of someone who would slay dragons and strike down schoolyard bullies in the same breath. Someone I could be, one day, if I could only look beond the fear gnawing at the soft parts of my stomach.

My pen name is Dove/Raptor. An ode to what I have been... and what I can be.

To the girl who used to ride my bus,

I hope you read this.

I know they whisper to stop daydreaming.

Don't.

Don't let them take that from you.