I have never heard my name. Though these syllables had to have intimately clasped one another, birthing the supposed remnants of a face, its phonation must be too prickly to hold in the mouth. Maybe it had been uttered through a singular, strained cry, but its echoes became diluted through the hymns of nature, carrying nothing more than the mumbled whisper that creeps through on a summer’s evening without attracting anything other than an eyeless stare worming its pupils into the sky in a whirlpooling motion. 

“A  lively get-together” is how Amy colored the event. But she herself was too faintly drawn to leave any silhouette trailing behind in sincerity. The shadow itself was more likely than not a creature of her own cultivation, outlined at just the precise measurements so she could even see her own face in the pavement, as long as the light found her. That true shadow must have been beaten beneath her bed, though it’s possible she still walked with this original, blight figure, only now it had been meticulously stretched passed life. Wherever she moved, she dragged behind this murdered shadow, though it never breathed to begin with. 

Amy's hands were not familiar with the feeling of earthly bareness, they always had to be surgically positioned as if to ferment an alluringly untamed air that only blossomed while playing dress up in femme fatale heels. With that, Amy needed a collection of wild party jewelry to match. Everyone seemed to effortlessly unfurl in this tampered fairy tale though, enjoying the ecstasy of Icarus' journey, oblivious to the molted feathers that wore away each time they levitated with shaking arms to try to shove their way into the sun. They never really even reached the ground though, did they? Posing for the cameras in front of them, those flashes illuminated their bodies to transparency in brief interludes, revealing persons more of vines than veins. With their arms interlocked in sentimental stature, these vines grew over each other, unable to properly make out what their skulls  truly thought through the shared roots spilling through them. As these vines grew, their persons contracted inwards and began to fall to an unknown cavity of the body, searching for anywhere to re-size to fit back into the sleeves of their skin and regain autonomy. They were always infatuated with the ways in which their beauty could float, especially when it was above one another, even if that latter prospect slid under the skin silently. Did any of them even know of these scissors in their hands? Though maybe that’s how the blood flows in this group, that maybe they can only hold each other with a collective chain of knives. 

“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Anna, we all know about your open-door policy,” Amy jeered through crooked teeth. Vulgarity was cheaply bought as the highest end of fashion to be adorned by their physique. All their witticisms had been strained out of plastic liquor bottles, but they never cared how fast it came pouring into themselves as long as it placed enough rasp on the tongue to show their voices were aged enough to belt obscenities in a sustained vibrato. 

“She’s ungrateful really. Maybe she shouldn’t even be here. Of course, I'm going to be the villain when her skin can’t handle a pin-prick of a comment,” Amy avowed to the group following Anna’s suspiciously quick departure to the restroom. 

The whole evening was an uninspired recycling of tired tea-cake talk and empty humor that supposedly shot them into a swiftness beyond the average stride. 

I’m unsure of their composition. Perhaps those knives should be put to use then, to discern whether their machinery can bleed or if their DNA is simply blueprints. All their eyes seemed to solely mold into a blurred vision of an intoxicated mystique, chipping it down to a polished crystal as if wearing it on their skin specifically energized it to glisten. But they stood so deeply within this glisten that you would never be near enough to restructure their enamored hearts. They were just a helpless shell of society that still found a way to speak so loudly. 

“You still do doodles?” Amy turned to me with a biting hint of pity. 

“Paintings,” I altered the morose mosaic she was piecing together. But Amy only offered a devoid nod to this correction. I suppose it’s too disdainful to turn faster than the seasoned ballerina. Though her stage is nothing more than a plinth to prettily perch on, one is unbecoming to dare to grace the stage with true artistry. “I made a few paintings of us, actually.” Now it was back to just her, alone on this stage. 

“All of us?”

My response emerged through the reveal of a collection of watercolor canvases. Amy ran across the field in a fairy-like pattern, with her feet still barely touching the grass while the hem of her white-picnic dress lifted her upwards. 

“Look, guys!” she cried, amassing the common narcissistic eye of the crowd. 

There is a certain thrill to this Darwinistic bond, some ionization running through your system in finding how you could win their trials of domination. But it's also therein that lies that fatalistic scar- a scar that makes coming back down so much more aching to the bone. It’s only ever when that candle burns out that darkness becomes palpable.  So there really is nothing here, no real knot that connects me to this species. I could reach my hand deep beyond the rib cages of Earth, placing its dirtied heart up to my ear just to see if you can breathe in a coherent rhythm, but I don’t believe you’d be uncovered. Your habitat is of a stranger origin -one that is unfamiliar with the symbiotic green and blue. 

My name is nothing to them but another way to entertain their own diluted fables, only existing as a canvas that can feed them their own reflection. The only time my name matters is when it can amplify their own. It’s nothing. All nothing. 

The trees were so inviting though. You could tear up the very grass they stood on and understand their vast journey through coarse terrain. Beneath bark and bugs, they had a heart that beat, a sound they would gladly let you listen to. They could not speak to me, yet I was obligated to take up their offer. Submerged through the green, I crawled further and further into an entirely different sphere. Each tree and bush was colored in with shades unknown to the human touch, a world so faithful to vivacity that I could feel safe decomposing in its arms. 

I wonder what my name sounds like. I wonder if it could be carried effortlessly through the breeze, or maybe brush up against the anthers of daisies. Perhaps that’s why I find myself here in the first place- to see if any of them would have the capacity to shout out, and I could finally decipher the beautiful language of being called one’s name. Expanding further into this foliage though, my absence had to have been a warm change of the winds. Maybe I was always within this forest to begin with. Sometimes I tell myself those feigned bodies never existed, and they would dissipate as brief sparks of an overactive imagination. Though more often than not, those illusory vessels were the more realistic beings. They could never appreciate this vegetated space. They’d conquer this Birch for finger paintings, aimlessly plucking off leaves for the belittlement of it. I think that’s what I find so filthy about their persona. They have never seen the likes of essence, nor do they want to. If I held out my palms with shells and soil, they would only see it for the residue, leaving its artistic fragility unread. They have to be above all, and the only way to do so is to shatter the very pastures that keep them flourishing. Knowing that I can see these shells and soil though isolates me in an elevating way. I guess it’s a brutal paradox to fight the pedestals by building one far higher, but it’s a satisfying craving. 

Above me, a flock of birds dart against the tides of the blue. How do they know they are alike? How can they understand that they are of the same species? What a curse it is to be of the human bloodline. We don’t see each other as flocks, or at least, not truthfully. We’re all aiding each other's flights in different directions, smiling at those who voicelessly spiral to an unspoken fate,  as long as our wings still have space to valiantly soar. We serenade ourselves with grandeur, and yet we are beaten out by the likes of birds. 

As I continued through the thick muster of trees, there came a point where the green surroundings trailed away, reaching a clearing deprived of any life except that of the sleeping body of desert sand. Turn around. You’re falling into dramatics. Yet, I grasped at the sand, letting it slide through the cracks of my fingers before delicately stepping in as if to test its strength.  There was some type of structure out in the vast, dry plains, only now making itself visible with the sun’s kiss. Sound had begun to disintegrate, leaving behind an impervious ringing that purged the mind. But I pushed through with an increasing speed. The penetrating ring pursued me with a spiked fervor,  but amongst the unintelligible cries, I almost seemed to be able to make out a name.  The structure now became more apparent, revealing the shape of a white, rectangular building, overheating from some type of symphony blaring from within. The building was windowless, with the only tellings of the outside world coming from two glass doors that defined its facade. My bleeding ears could subside. I knew it came for me. 

Pushing inside, I basked in its glorious interior.  Upon every wall, my watercolors had come to greet me, displayed each with a small plaque revealing the canvas’ name. It was a sort of haunting haze to watch these watercolors crawl off onto the barren walls, embracing me in solitude. Yet the silence allowed me to feel, letting its colors trickle onto my skin, slithering up around my neck to tell me of my unsung stories. I closed my eyes, finding myself while the colors continued to consume me. I at last saw myself, in a myriad of different shapes and complexions, and I understood. I understood it all.

I have never heard my name, but the paints seem to speak it for me.