In this loud house with obnoxious lighting, you pull me aside when the music gets too loud to talk over. Sat on a ratty couch, your arms spread over the cushions behind us and my heart beats almost right out, into my hands. The only thing that scares me more than you wanting to talk to me is you not wanting to talk to me. This scene feels familiar, the déjà vu hits me, and the replay gives me motion sickness.
Suddenly, I am 12 and my body is the talk of the town.
I once wore skirts with ease, but my wardrobe has viciously changed since. There was a time when my mind wasn’t occupied with insecurities, but now, I refuse to sit on your lap and I cover mine up with wrinkled sweaters. Everywhere I looked, a warm light would follow —tinted rose, maybe a little— but now, dark spotlights find me everywhere and all they do is burn my skin. I am thrown onto you, forced to find solace on the ground, I didn’t want any of this. You have little to say about my personal, but plenty about my person. I tie my hoodie around my waist when I go to throw away my trash. I keep a vigilant eye on the boys after school, as I wait for my mother to pick me up. Oh, how I wish I had eyes in the back of my head. Oh, how I wish I was Medusa, and the others were all so naïve.
Suddenly, I am 14 and I have no idea that the boy I like so bad can bluff his way through a bad hand with ease.
Hushed voices come back as loud lies. Your whispers are never out of earshot, no matter how hard you try, so, my friends try make up for it with desperate reassurances. I believe each one but your voice rings perpetually in my head. Everything is okay as long as the sun warms our skin. You lock your door with the sunfall, and I find myself shouting out all the passwords that I know to get you to let me in again. I don't freeze on the porch because you open up as pink floods the skies and before my lips can turn blue. I am 15 now, and my face is on the big screen. I hear no commentary. I gather all of my courage and give you my last gold star. I will not be desperate, and I will no longer beg, but I tell myself to try again, for the last time. Your words are sweet like syrup until the poison settles in my stomach when I hang up the phone. I am sobbing on vacation, and you are doing what you please, as you always have.
I am still 15, but it’s been months now, and I am stronger. Still, you want exactly what’s on the surface, the only thing you have ever wanted from me. And maybe I’m not as strong as I thought, because I refuse the first time, but only because I didn’t know there wouldn’t be a second.
Suddenly, I am 17 and I catch new eyes trailing my body and familiar gazes lingering longer.
A year and a half of isolation may do that to a person, but it feels like a little more than that. I am sat in the kitchen when my mother’s words ingrain themselves in my mind. They play on a boombox daily, as a reminder, as a warning, as brutal inspiration. My ears bleed but nobody is worried. They praise my new achievements and all of my self-control. I am crying on my bathroom floor as I pray to every God whose name I know. I am 18, and now I am sick and cannot stop twisting the knife. I do not want to stop. Why would I when the applause has become my favorite song? I cut my hair for a change; things get better before they get worse.
I am still 18, but suddenly, everything has truly changed, forever now.
Conversations don’t last long, and different hands grip my hips on different nights. I am 18 when you cut the conversation short to kiss me. I wanted it, I did, but it’s ironic that it happened that way. I am still 18 when I realize I am not as brave as I thought, once I’m halfway down the plank. We talk until we’re tired, but of course it isn’t what you wanted, so now I am warm inside your bed, but I can’t return to you what you’ve given me.
Suddenly, I am 19, and we talk and talk. You say my favorite words until you grow tired of mine and my hesitation to move. Now you’re silent with no explanation. I am 19 and there’s an unfamiliar arm around my waist. You didn’t ask, but I didn’t push you away. My mind chooses to close up and my throat chooses to follow. I notice you staring at my lips while I speak, while you speak, while the movie we both picked plays, and while I wish we were watching. I am still 19 when I make a run for it. When I force myself into silence and stuff my mouth, my lungs, my liver, instead.
Suddenly, I am alone, in a room surrounded by mirrors. All I can see is myself but all I can hear are the words of others. The good and the bad. And they grow louder as I let time pass, because I always let time pass. I am under a magnifying glass, and I realize I always have been; and as the sun comes up, everything burns a little more.
About the Creator
daphne gray
just a girl in this world who thinks a lot and writes a lot and some of it makes sense and some of it doesn't. enjoy nevertheless.
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November 30th.
I am sat by my favorite tree again, 13 days later. The ground beneath me is still familiar, and so is the smell of smoke, but I am trying to get used to the ache in my lungs. I try not to ruminate on these next three weeks, my least favorite of the year, but it is futile. I feel stuck. I am unsure if I have it in me to turn my pain into some glorious metaphor tonight. The sun sets too early now; they’re each different, sure, but in this moment, it feels all the same. Blue and yellow and orange muddled together until the canvas becomes dark again, like I am used to. I like being used to things. My roommates’ conversations sound foreign, the girl in the mirror is a stranger, I have this weird pain in my left shoulder, maybe I should have gone to my weekly yoga class after all. For 13 days, I was someone different, and 13 days later, I don’t want to know her anymore. I feel stagnant. My to-do list is a mountain and I have no plan for when to climb it, much less how. I am sat outside, on the golf course that has become my second home, hoping desperately to find the place in which my remains are buried, but I’m not even trying. I see no grave and there was never a tombstone to look for, all that I am met with is a rabbit hopping by, that’s new. I don’t like new. The next three weeks shouldn’t feel new, I’ve been through them before and I’ll do so again next year. New, new, new, everything feels new. The girl I once knew would know what to do, but these 13 days have killed her, and funnily enough, there’s still no tombstone to look for. Last week was warm but tonight the weather chills me to my bone; my hands are always cold but I worry my thumbs might actually freeze. These sweatpants were given to me yesterday and my comically large coat has finally made its debut. The growl from my stomach is almost comforting, if only it didn’t pain me in a way I wasn’t used to. I twirl my hair, the same piece I always do, but I just found out it might make it shorter than the rest, that’s new. Everything seems so close, but when I reach out my arms, it is only a gust of wind that greets me, and a magnifying glass falls out of my hands. I didn’t know I was holding that. I don’t know a lot anymore, apparently, and, worst of all, I don’t know if I have it in me to learn again.
By daphne gray2 years ago in Poets
Comments (1)
Gosh, this caused a lump in my throat. It was so poignant!