literature

My red shirt and I

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annamae411's avatar
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Literature Text

     I have a shirt. Anyone who might happen to come across it would probably throw it in the garbage. However, to me, it is irreplacable. I intend to keep it until the day I die. In fact, I wish to be buried with this particular shirt, if not buried in it.

     This shirt has many holes. Some are accidental, some deliberate. Some are simply from age. It is fraying at the edges and the seams are comming undone. It is covered in stains. The fabric has worn so thin that it offers no warmth or protection from the elements. The logo it sports has faded so much that it is now illegible.

     The shirt came into my possesion when I was small. My mother had purchased it in Hawaii the summer before I was born. She gave it to me when I was little as a night shirt. Back then the hem dragged the ground and I had to lift it up whenever I took a step. As I got older and grew into the shirt I began wearing it only on lazy days instead of to sleep in. After that time it became my sick day shirt. Once it gathered some of it's more noticable holes, it became my crap-shirt. The shirt you wear when you dye your hair or paint or do anything with a guaranteed mess.

     After twenty years of having everything thrown at it, this shirt looks like a hot mess. One day I decided to try and patch the larger holes, one in particular because of where it was. Once the terrible patch job was done and I looked at the scar it left, I decided to leave the others as they were. Because, after the patch job disaster, I realized something. I was never going to get the shirt back to the perfect condition in which I recieved it. That was impossible. No, the holes and stains gave it character, if anything.

     It is stained with blood, sweat, tears, hair dye, paint, dirt and all manner of things that don't come to mind. It is dry rotting and falling apart at the seams. To say the least it has been through the ringer. It has taken on a lifetime of wear and tear that no one, regardless of their skill level, can recreate or fake. It is for this reason I refuse to get rid of the raggedy horror.

     You see, every hole is a part of me that I have discarded. Every stain something I have taken on. The patch shows the time I believed I could put myself back the way I once was. The lack of further patches is my knowlege that I can't go back. The knowlege that I should love the holes because they were a part of me. And so I accept the stains, embrace the holes, and sport the patch with pride.

     This shirt that is as old as I am is the physical representation of my life. Where others see a damaged good that is worthy of the trash, I see beauty and memories and me. It may not be pretty or fit for public anymore, but neither am I from time to time.

     So I will keep the shirt as a reminder of all I've been through. I will keep it so it can collect more memories, absorb more tears, don more holes. And if, by the time my life is comming to an end, it is held together by one thread, then so be it. Let it proove just how much I've done. No one goes through life unscathed, and I am no exception.

     I feel lucky to have my shirt. To be able to see this ratty thing and know that it is, has been, and will be my partner through life. It will get holes as I do. It will be stained as I am stained. It will wear thin along side me. It will hold itself together with as much strength as the both of us possess. My red shirt and I.

My submission for round 2 of the writing tournament in :iconwriters--club:

The theme for this round was "Inner Passage". I struggled with this theme, I really did. At first I had thousands of ideas, but they all had something to do with my ocs and I swore to myself I'd keep them out of this. So then I thought that inner passage could mean inner journey or getting through or over something. But I couldn't figure out how to do that with anything other than my ocs... So I had horrible wroter's block over the whole thing, which gave me the idea to do a piece about getting over writer's block. It was a sort of stream of conciousness thing, but I wasn't feeling it. I kept comming back to the idea that I wanted it to be about getting over something.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see my shirt. Yes this shirt is real, I may post pics later if I can get my camera to work. Yeah, I found my charger, but I can't find my camera, go figure. But anyway, the moment I had the idea, I threw on my shirt and started writing. I even got a little chocked up a few times. This shirt means a hell of a lot to me because, in my eyes, it IS me. The best part of it is, the said logo that's illegible, the one word I can make out is "free". 

I feel so proud to have gotten through the first round (the theme for which was "bird cage") I hope I can get through to the final round, but who knows? Both of my pieces so far mean a lot to me, because both mean freedom to me, which is what I feel is most important in the world. If you want to read my round 1 submission, the link is thus: fav.me/d717957

© 2014 - 2024 annamae411
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prettyflour's avatar
I think you did a wonderful job with this.  I'm taking part in this tournament as well, and I too, struggled with the theme.  I really like what you did with this.  Good luck!