Cursive

I used to force myself to write everything in cursive.
I was always drawn to how elegant it looked painted across the paper,
to me, it wasn’t just a font
it was art.
I wanted to be just like it.
I wanted to be cursive.
I wanted to be sophisticated and beautiful.
I wanted to be Marigold, Cornet, and Calligraphy,
So I crossed out who I was
And tried writing myself into so many stories I couldn’t even recognize me.

I looked back at my past to try to find who I was,
and I realized the last time I was really truly myself,
I was in the fifth grade.
So I started writing that instead.
I focused on how I was then,
all covered in dirt and constantly moving;
I realize now, I’m still always making a mess of things, even when I don’t want to,
so I write it.
how I was as a child is much like how my handwriting is today,
messy and all over the pages because I try to write down my thoughts before they leave my mind,
but I always have a hundred thoughts at once,
and I can never seem to get them all down.
So I’m writing them now,
I will never be cursive.
I never allowed myself to grow into my true character.
I never even wanted to write her because I knew,
I knew she was not cursive.
she was messy and shy and awkward and naïve, 
but she was also confident and kind and honest-
no, I never wanted to take the chance,
“You have to be cursive!” I used to write myself.
“Be cursive, be cursive, be cursive!”
but I didn’t become cursive,
I became my own antagonist.
I realized I needed to burn all the fictions I’ve been hiding in,
and from their ashes, rise and write myself a new one, the true one.
because I am not a font in my story.
I am the quill,
beautifully hand carved with the love given to me by my parents,
and shaped by the life choices I’ve made.
When you hold me so tight that I crack,
and my ink bleeds all over your hands,
we will be reminded that sometimes things need to be broken down so they can grow into something stronger and even more beautiful than before,
and all the bad memories and feelings we’ve gone through,
I write those too.
I write them to remind us that yes,
we will be hurt,
we will be broken,
but we will be okay,
because we are everything.
we are dependable like Times New Roman.
we are small like Cornet.
we are bold and strong like Boulder.
we are plain like Arial.
we are elegant like Script.
And we may be hard to read like Old Roman, 
but there will always be someone willing to bear the headaches and the time, just to translate how we’re really feeling.
I stopped trying to change to fit into a story.
instead I write my own story,
with all the different sides of me,
because I know that somewhere, to someone,
I’m cursive.