For many years, my answer to this prompt would have been reflexive; I like that my answer has changed.

This is going to be a long and roundabout explanation, so bear with me. (Or, you know, don’t. There’s lots of other stuff on Prose, after all.)

I had no intention of writing for this until I read a line in HEDunkle’s response to the original self-love challenge: “The only way I can talk about myself in a way that doesn’t feel prideful is in the third person…” That resonated. My father taught me, sternly, not to brag. I vividly remember his reaction when, around age 11, I was ostentatiously counting how many seconds I could do something in front of a room of people. I honestly no longer remember what capability I was demonstrating. I just remember the contempt in his voice on the car ride home: “You were showing off.” You should have heard him when some wide receiver would perform an endzone celebration on TV. He taught me well; no showboating. I learned.

Thus, I had no interest in writing and violating my father’s precept, HEDunkle’s line reminded me why I would never just give the reflexive answer of what I like about myself, “I’m smart.” And then, to my sudden surprise, I realized something: that old answer, so foundational to my person that I had ceased to examine it, no longer fits. I am, genuinely, not proud of it anymore. And I felt very happy and free.

For the majority of my life, my identification as “smart” defined my existence, probably starting in first grade. Another boy called me “nerdy.” It hurt; I did not fit in with my peers, and I already knew it. It turns out that even first grade girls laugh if you attempt to woo them with your encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs. But mockery for one’s intelligence has a strange, paradoxical effect in that the target feels inferior and superior simultaneously. I am lesser than you because I am smart and cannot fit in, and you scorn the trait I hold in abundance; and because of that trait I am greater than you and unlike you. The classic formulation of this vicious, circular logic refers to future life: “living well is the best revenge.” I thought about that phrase in elementary school. In eighth and ninth grade—relegated to the periphery of a friend group, unappealing to girls, afraid of tougher peers, and desperately trying to place my hands to conceal the worst acne on my face on any given day—that phrase became my mantra.

Late high school got better. I joined the Academic Decathlon team and made a few genuinely close friends (this July, I’ll perform the wedding ceremony for one of them). A couple girls dated me, which meant I was worthy of love (that logic sounded less stupid when I was 16). A very good dermatologist prescribed Accutane, which after multiple courses successfully shut down my oil glands and gave me comfort in public for the first time in three years.

But my brain remained my game. A philosophy professor in college gave us this exercise where you rank the things most important to your identity. By imagining life without those things, you determine what matters most. It wasn’t part of his instructions, but I always imagined a traumatic loss. Appearance matters to you? Disfigurement in a fire. Family or friends make you who you are? Car accident. Athletic ability? Quadriplegia. Religious beliefs? Absolute proof of a godless universe. Figure out which loss would most totally destroy you; that thing matters most to your sense of self. I’d complete this exercise every couple years, and my number one always remained the same: intelligence. Strip away anything else, I figured, and I might be miserable, but I’d still be me. My mind was my life preserver. For years, my brain had been the only part of my body or soul I’d liked; without it, I’d drown. It was my comfort, my companion, my coping mechanism, my pride and my problem.

I feel like I need to give a clear example to show both what kind of “smart” I mean and how it affected me. My senior year of high school, my Model United Nations team got called by judges at an Ohio competition to accept a trophy. Several voices on the team said, “Ryan should go.” I had trained several of the younger team members, and I would counsel teammates on courses of action during lunches or evenings at the hotel. I had even strategized with our advisor about who should receive which assignment. I had never thought of myself as a captain, but apparently my teammates did, and I took pride in the recognition. But there was another moment of recognition at that Model UN conference I remember equally well. During a committee break I started chatting with someone from another school about Academic Decathlon – one of us was wearing a pin, or using a branded pen, or I don’t know what. He asked what my score had been at the state-level competition. I would not have broached the subject (“You were showing off,” my father had said on the car ride home), but he brought it up, so I told him what I scored. “No you didn’t,” he replied. I assured him that really was my score, and that I had been the individual state champion in Pennsylvania. He gave me a couple content questions from that Decathlon year, which I answered easily. “I’m sorry for doubting you,” he said. “I’ve just never met anyone like you.”

There are also interview, speech, and essay categories, but since seven multiple choice tests are at the heart of Academic Decathlon, here’s a question.

The boy’s assertion that he had “never met anyone like me” was

A) complimentary

B) alienating

C) both A and B.

On that day in 2001, I would have gotten it wrong and picked A. It was indeed a nice thing to say, though even then I knew he had overestimated me. (I have met actual geniuses; I am not one.) But his comment also ended our conversation. I can offer one further proof that the above answer is C. This post is the first time I have told literally anyone this story. For all these years, I have kept the anecdote to myself because it is simply not the kind of thing you can tell someone. My conversation with that Model UN kid, and a handful of others like it, has been an untellable secret.

A year or two ago I attended a teaching workshop and carpooled with a colleague and close friend. At one point, wanting us to think of ways to support students, the instructor said, “We’ve all failed a test at one point. How did you work through your struggles?” Teacher after teacher shared a story while I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

It kept bothering me. On the ride home with my friend, I decided we were close enough I could tell her. My stomach clenched, but I had determined that I should talk to her, and I was going to. “I’ve never struggled in school,” I confessed. She said she had noticed I was uncomfortable and guessed it was something like that. “I’ve never failed a test,” I went on. “All through high school and college I got A’s. I’ve never had to study for a test.” I knew she would still be a friend afterward, and it felt good to just tell her why I had shrunk down and stayed uncharacteristically silent during a discussion. Yet we also changed the subject shortly thereafter. I don’t really know what she was thinking, and I’m happier not making guesses.

I am incredibly fortunate to have the academic capability I do. There’s also a burden that comes with it, and for me, it was never about expectations of success—my excellent parents put happiness above status and never cared if their kid was a doctor, and my dad turned down multiple promotions rather than make his family move. My issue was that even first grade girls would laugh when I tried to woo them with my encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs. I learned to keep my achievements and knowledge to myself, never to show off, and never to discuss how I felt about being smart. Simple enough. I just couldn’t talk about the most significant component of my identity.

So I looked at the challenge asking me to share one thing I like about myself, and I knew I could not share what I took so much pride in because it was unmentionable and unpardonable to say “I like that I’m smart.” And I thought back to that personality test from my philosophy prof and all the times I had picked “intelligence” as most important, and I realized it would be wrong now. I realized that I could answer the prompt, and that I don’t have to hide what I’m proud of anymore.

I’m proud that I can read a student’s paragraph and diagnose exactly where her writing process went astray. I’m proud that I can teach a 200-year-old novel to an English class full of vocational students and help them feel genuine anger when Wickham runs off with Lydia. I’m proud that I changed my mind and became a teacher instead of a stock broker who would have spent his life making more money for rich people. I’m proud that I can advise my friends on courses of action when they need it. I’m proud that I can share my love and knowledge of Hitchcock movies with my daughter, who at age 8 said her favorite movie was Strangers on a Train. I’m proud that I can write a strong letter to the editor endorsing the right school board candidate; I’m proud that my friends ask me to edit their letters. I’m proud that I’ve coached community theatre actors through Shakespeare, and proud that I organized and advertised those productions so students in this rural area could go watch decent Shakespeare for free. I’m proud of my family. I’m proud that I can be a thoughtful father, one who can (I hope) help his children feel a healtheir self-esteem than I did.

I’m not proud of being smart anymore because “smart” is a bullshit way to define yourself. I’m proud of what I can do with my mind to help people.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but I think I grew up.

I think emotions are experienced differently by everyone.

For me, Anger is heavy. Like a thin plastic bag filled with sand, just about to burst.

It sits in your stomach, weighing you down.

It's like pouring more and more sand into this already thinly stretched bag, but you keep going and going, until it just can't hold anymore.

That's when you snap, all of your sand just comes tumbling out. It's flowing so fast, and you can't catch it, you can't stop it. It just slips through the gaps of your fingers, as you frantically try to scoop it up, but to no avail.

My brain freezes, and I have no control. Words spew from my mouth, my tounge as sharp as a new blade; cutting people deep.

As the anger intensifies, I don't just see fire, I feel it. It burns so red hot.

My cheeks start to become inflamed. My eyes begin to prick with hot, weighted tears.

They fall from my swelling eyes, and roll down my cheeks, collecting at my chin.

I go silent at this point. I start to feel ashamed, and embarrassed.

I've probably hurt someone I truly love.

I can see their face falling, shocked by what I've said. I have probably more than bruised their ego, but profoundly wounded them. They won't forget this feeling.

I start to cool down, I can feel it behind my ears. It moves from the back of my head, over my crown and slowly creeps down my face. Gradually moving down my body until it reaches my toes.

I've made it back from anger, but the damage is done.

I can't take it back, only apologise and work to one day gain better control over my own emotions.

Oh, pretty lady, slip your red panties on

slink into red dress – silk stroking every curve

swivel provocatively as you sashay into my view

come hither look flushing erotic cheek bones

pout ruby lips blowing crimson kisses my way

slather lotion the length of long luscious legs

dab exotic wafts of perfume behind sultry ears

we’re going dancing tonight, hot mama

so swirl your stuff, rhumba lush tush to your rhythm

draw all eyes in the room to undulating Latina hips

scream your passionate fervor in red mist cloud

electrify my feelings of mounting excitement

heat wafting from your core bounces back to my body

emanating arousal as you imbibe from deep wells of lust

inhaled for steamy survival, oh you’re scorching hot

let’s tango our way home, remove your red dress

leave the red lace panties on, the color of sex.

and trust me, sexy lady, I’ll do the rest.

Cat’s cradle like

Lost plot like

extension cord hell like

beating like

mindrace pileup like

ziptied synapses

chokepoint

reroute frayed wires

fraid whyers why

slipknot squareknot squarenot Slipknot

devilstongue cloven clovehitch jesuschrist

monstrance monster darklight purpled wrists in skull

just

just cut the motherfucker

It exists beyond your understanding; but to it you are an old acquaintance.

“What a waste of money,” I mumbled as we exited the tent. Jack gave me a disapproving, sidelong glance. “What?”

“Screw you, Mark. You don’t always have to be such a dick.” Jack shook his head as we returned to the clamour and wafting scents of the carnival. I inhaled deeply, free of the oppressive odor of lavender and smoke inside the purple tent. We passed by a sign, the words Fortune Teller painted on it. It declared a fee of a measly five dollars for all the nonsense a self-proclaimed astrologist could handle.

“I’m not always a dick,” I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets to shield them from the wind. “I just know a pile of bullcrap when I see it.”

Jack sighed.

That was three days ago. That was the first time I saw it.

We were leaving the fairgrounds. Jack had already left with his little sister, while I waited for my parents to meet me at the exit. In the midwest, podunk town of Lansbury, the carnival is the only real excitement we have all year. Everyone and their extended family show up. When I saw the figure creeping around the edge of the woods, I just assumed it was someone’s drunk cousin out for a piss.

The forest was dark. Fall had not yet robbed the trees of their leaves, and the setting sun beyond the canopy could not penetrate the dense greenery enough for me to make out the form. It was certainly humanoid; walking on two legs with two arms dangling down from a thin torso. Although I was about 100 feet away from it, on the other side of a parking lot... I could see something wasn’t quite… right. Its gaunt form was hunched forward, as if it were only bones.

At one point, it seemed to stop and turn to face me. If I could have made out its eyes in the shadows, I feel that our gaze would have met. It was in that moment that fear gripped me. Something in its stillness seemed to tell me it was surprised that I could see it. It stood motionless, with a strange curiosity that someone was watching it. I froze. After a moment, it turned away, stalking back into the forest. As it left, I took note of its peculiar proportions. The arms were not just long - they stretched from its shoulders to its ankles. It was as though it lacked a gut completely as its legs stretched up to its chest.

Although its physical form vanished back into the dim forest, the memory of that moment has haunted me endlessly, as if playing on repeat ever since.

Two days ago, I saw it again. Or at the very least, I believe I heard it. I was at home and my parents had already left for their date night. I was in the living room, watching television when I was startled by a tap on the window. Dread gripped me, tearing at my mind as memories of the creature flooded back.

Memory can be confabulated. Over time, your mind fabricates, distorts, and misinterprets the past until it’s no longer the same as reality.

Not this time. It was as if at the moment, I realized that the shadows of the forest were not as defined as I remembered. I could see it clearly now. The veil was lifted. In my improved memory, it was daylight. I was at the exit. No, the entrance. We were entering the park when I saw the creature, lurking behind one of the carnival’s tents. It watched me as its seven long fingers gripped and distorted the tent’s fabric. It’s pale, bulbous face scrutinized my movements with beady black eyes. Their piercing gaze tracked my entrance into the carnival before it stealthily released the fabric and disappeared.

At the window followed another set of rhythmic taps.

Motionless, I kept my eyes fixated on the television as I tried to pretend what I was hearing wasn’t actually real. A single booming rap ended the barrage of taps. Silence followed. I laid my head down on the couch as the television’s lights danced across me, and after a sleepless night, morning finally arrived. I checked my phone to see that my parents had sent me a text to let me know that they had booked a hotel room downtown to avoid driving home late.

I glanced up at the window, and with all my courage, I pulled back the curtains. What greeted me was a curious imprint. A bird. I could discern the head, wings, and body impressed on the glass in a chalky white color. I walked outside and saw where it had landed and scrambled around in the mulch beneath the windowsill. It wasn’t there now.

Yesterday, it came again. I was in my room, while my parents were sound asleep in their bedroom. I heard the sound of the door slowly groaning open. I wasn’t asleep and I don’t know how anyone could be. It’s deliberate footsteps grew louder, closer to me, until it stood beside my bed. I couldn’t look at it. I kept my eyes shut.

Above the blankets, I felt the cold, clammy flesh of seven fingers grab my hand. It slipped something into my palm… something metallic and a strange warm dampness.

"You weren't supposed to remember," it whispered. "You weren't supposed to see." Its voice was sweet and melodic. It wasn't like how I remembered it.

I could remember it now. The tent it hid behind while gripping its purple fabric. The fortune teller’s sign out front that had pulled my attention. It introduced itself to me, telling me its name is Jack and that it would like to take me to see the fortune teller. I was frightened, because I already knew what lurked inside. There was no carnival. There was only dusky forest, with us deep inside its unlit grasp.

I had pulled back the curtain and stepped inside when I felt Jack’s seven-fingered hand grip my arm. Terrified, I could clearly recall its voice. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t remember a thing.’ It rasped, its breath grating and deliberate. I wasn’t supposed to remember anything. I wasn’t supposed to see it. That’s why it hunted me.

That’s why it killed my parents.

——

“What do you think, Crawlly?” Captain Aimsfield’s voice was soft; sympathetic. From behind the one-way mirror, they watched him and heard his blubbering sobs.

“A psychotic break. How else would you explain it?” She took a drag of her cigarette as she looked at the captain across the table. “No fingerprints other than his own on the knife and a completely nonsensical story to boot. The fact is that Mister and Misses Gordon are dead. They’ve been dead for three days, yet he says two days ago they were very much alive and out on a date. And there’s no carnival in Lansbury - there hasn’t been one for years. Not a single person named Jack has any connection to him. You saw his written confession, didn’t you? He had a death grip on it when they found him.”

“I saw the sheet,” Aimsfield replied while tapping the table with his fingers.

“I don’t know if he even knew we were in there with him when he was talking,” Crawlly said, her eyes wandering to the preteen boy in the interrogation room. “How many times has he recited the story now?”

“Seven times.” He replied quickly.

“And each time, exactly the same recount?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t see any other option than to institutionalize him.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” The captain was massaging his temples now. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”

“What’s that?”

The captain paused, his eyes locked with Crawlly’s. “The bite marks on his neck.”

Girl Scout cookies used to be bigger, and there were more in the box.

Grandmothers used to make fudge and cookies, pies that cooled in screenless windows, made-from-scratch biscuits, fry bread, fried everything, with real lard.

The milkman delivered bottles with fresh cream floating on the top. Coagulated goodness for the kids.

Vegetables at McDonalds were burger toppings, not salads.

I don't miss the open racism. I'm glad women can vote. And it's nice we're more or less done with asbestos and small pox and polio. But damn, can we bring back the Thin Mints?

Once a love so deep

The pain as it fades away

It’s unbearable

I have tried so hard

But got nowhere

I show you love is still there

You still don’t come back

My darkness gets darker

As your light gets brighter

I try to make you understand

Love is still there

Still you don’t come back

I begged and I cried

You still left

And my heart has been broken ever since

Alone all day

Alone all night

No friends

Nor enemies

Living my life

In this lonely place

I’m scared to smile

I’m scared to cry

In this lonely life