Vajrapradama Mudra

---

Steven Westbrook

I grew up as insecure as the password 

“Password1,” the cliché of a teenager 

wearing her heart on her sleeve.  

Imagine a thunderbolt made from diamonds. 

That was not me. Now imagine  

Level V armor stronger than neutron  

star crust: ditto, not me.  

I saw myself in the shame of wrong 

answers on the PSAT, another mis 

guess at the debutante ball,  

my eyes staring straight down  

at my shoes, my eyes Krazy 

glued to my feet. I was collapse 

at a yoga class. I was all thumbs 

at a craft fair until I sat for longer  

than usual, ignoring the artists  

beside me building city-sized dioramas  

from kernels of rice, stitching  

tapestries from dried leaves, 

and I fidgeted with my hands— 

this time not from nervousness  

but because I was crafting an amulet 

without the usual cloudy sea glass  

or upcycled wire and doilies.  

I was using nothing  

but peripheral pieces of me.  

I was lifting my thumbs while inter 

lacing my fingers like woven reeds 

when I felt a strange feeling:  

my hands were not shaking like rain  

sticks, not trembling the usual  

tremble like twigs in a hurricane.  

This amulet, my amulet, made  

from me, was starting to fit who  

I was or, better yet, who I might become.  

Now, when I wear it over my chest,  

I might not out-trek Kami Rita 

or outthink the Brookings think tank,  

but I accept myself a little more readily,  

and I feel strong in my body. 

If I am a passcode, I am  

Xfj7Dk&al49wq3P%r#BhUul*^gnJ!ko9Pe?715oBG0@7mKdjlUf94ry58fdsjla*&&T^*fDxqZ;)