Gabrielle Garland

I Write

I write. I have this Monkey that sits on my shoulder. From time to time it gets down into my ear and does a cannonball like flip into my stomach, where it then pulls itself up into a knot in my chest and eventually rests on the lump in my throat. Sometimes I go days choking on the words that have been brought up from my heart, it is unfortunate that this is the only way I can connect what I say with how I feel. As if the veil were never torn see my heart is caged by this grey matter that enacted some sort of autopilot in me. I am on a merry go round and the world is spinning around me I keep my eyes fixed above me and the few times the chaos begins to slow enough, that is when all the emotion Comes rushing up and I spew it out gasping for air in between. I hear a voice inside that tells me this is not real; I must have not survived some incident and this place I am in/that is in me, is my purgatory where anxious and blindfolded I wait. Everyone is the same yet different Like the book “The Langeliers” by Stephen King, I must have blinked and became engulfed in some black hole, I look down at my hands completely covered in black matter. I close my eyes and try to sense my kids, my family, anything familiar, but the taste even though slightly familiar is flat. I am paralyzed and trying to make contact. I mouth out the words “Wake me up.” The only voice that comes out is that of the monkey, I look at the people around me and without words I ask, “Did you hear that?” but they do not hear a thing. I close my eyes attempting to escape it. Motionless I listen to the stone-cold screams of the silence and a constant howling that only gets closer, so then I open my eyes to escape it. It tries to follow, and I quickly pick up my composition book as my armer, my pen becomes my sword I go into battle. Sometimes the only way out is the way I came in and sometimes I am far in before I realize it. I begin to search for crumbs left behind from my falling apart. I feel as if I am in a time capsule and the navigation has begun to malfunction. I open the pages of my journal and the words illuminate like a map. I can retrace my steps. There are days I am so exhausted I fall asleep inside of the pages and they wrap me up in their embrace and carry me to safety. I am here. I am alone but I am here. I consider I am much like an alien and then I wonder what an alien is, how do you describe one without using words made up by man. My subconscious stands on my shoulders as these thoughts begin to flood me and just as the water begins to reach my nose a being dressed in a white suit with blue pinstripes reaches out a hand to wipe my eyes and embraces me with warmth and belonging, I am consumed by a light feeling that says, “Wont you tell me all about it?” It begins, Words are spilling out and filling in the lines trapping the monkey, with all its doubt, inside. Six O’clock becomes clear again and that grey matter that once made up the sarcophagus that encased my heart comes alive as if a spell has been lifted, in all resilience it finds its way back to where it belongs on this vessel. I learn a little more about myself and become a little more familiar, a little more aware of the passenger on board that seeks to sink my ship. My name is Gabrielle Jourden Garland, I search my soul, I search the universe, and I write to escape it.