Of car keys and vulnerability

I lost my invincibility on the corner of 1100 North and 5300 West. 

I slammed doors a little harder and turned a little sharper before that with my back to the tax collectors and the price of gasoline. Back then I didn’t wear sunglasses when I looked at the sun, but now I have to use them for the moon and the stars and ice included. It’s too bright, and the light burns my eyes the way that gasoline and air bags burn skin. I make sure I walk heel-toe now. Heel-toe, heel-toe, like my dance teacher said. Because otherwise I might trip. I swear I read food labels more, too- just never the ones on bags of Cheetos. And don’t ask me how many bottles of toothpaste I have gone through. It’s a personal issue these days.

I thought I had it going on with my clipped finger nails and curled hair and car keys. I drove myself to the bank and cashed a pay check. You can bet I was on the top of the world. I thought that maybe this was courage and I was sure it was maturity. Everything the sun touched, I could touch and it didn’t matter how sharp it was. I mean, my skin was tough and I don’t really feel anything anyway.

I swear the grass would turn towards me when I walked outside the way that it grows to the sun. Everything I touched could turn to gold- sharp or dull, bright or dull. Obviously that was true when I ate Cheetos or whatever because those are already gold… but I knew it could happen to the piano and the novel and the scan-tron and the audition too. I had power in my fingertips and my eyelashes and probably down to my leg hairs. Nobody could stop me.

And then on the corner of 1100 North and 5300 West, I stopped myself and I said: what? why? how? And that is the day I became breakable.