A man walked across the poles of the earth. On his own human feet, he climbed up our land, traversing continents, cultures, and currencies. He made one choice and it propelled him through the world as if it isn’t an impossibly foreboding distance.
People have convinced massive crowds that they’re saved from the consequences of their actions. That they have been rescued from the jaws of Satan and shown the true light of the world. Their hypnotic words pull meaning from the void. They dress the nothing up in a costume of glory and power and it transforms into some great Something. And just being told something is true is enough for their followers to believe.
A woman sacrificed everything to save innocent lives. She saw suffering and gave all she knew to stand by them. Graceful and glorious her actions outlast herself, an inspiration. In reaching out her bare generous hands she rescued thousands from the trauma of systematic circumstances.
A man dressed like your neighbor murdered innocent women buried them in the trunk of his car, and succeeded. Over and over and over and over and over again. Blood underneath his fingernails as he waved hello but still he was let go. Hands that hugged would not always let go. A goal was accomplished. Goals don’t have to be good.
And people graduate, and pay off their debts, and sit in an office from 9 to 5, and learn to make martinis at home, and fall in love with their best friend, and get married, and have 2.4 kids, and pick up hobbies like birdhouse building or rock tumbling, and take their paid time off, and live. Because they can. These people are free of the conception that every person must be unique and special and live a particularly unique and special life. They move forward, act freely, aren’t held back.
This is not my life.
At night I lie flat on my back on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom. I lie flat on my back on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom and think about how this is not my life. My twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom is coated in yellow sheets that try to manipulate my psyche. Yellow sheets on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom swallow only a drop of my sorrow as I sink deeper into them every day. I sink every day into the yellow sheets that once brought me joy. I picked them out with her on a sunny day just for my twin-sized bed. I said I wanted the warmth to shine onto my bed and into my soul. The sun stops shining just before the twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom now. At night I lie in my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom with its yellow sheets and think about how this is not my life.
At night, I drown in the yellow sheets, and I think, and I stare at the walls of my childhood bedroom. It’s poorly constructed, each wall different. One, a host to every paper memory I’ve collected over the past 23 years. A photo of people with their faces tightly pressed against each other. A mold gold-colored ribbon to measure a forgotten achievement. A ticket to a show–overpriced and poorly done. The paper memories are symbols of a peaceful past. Symbols of a smile that was at home in yellow sheets. Symbols of a smile that I can’t seem to find anymore. I can’t find that smile anymore as I drown in my yellow sheets. I drown in the yellow sheets on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom and I stare at the walls and I stare at the paper memories and I think about how this is not my life and I think about how I cannot find that smile anymore.
The second wall is the space of doors–doors to the closet, doors to the bathroom, doors to the rest of my life. The doors I once walked through with my head up. The doors that once called me out of my twin-sized bed. The doors that once called me towards a better life. The doors that are closed now. I drown in the yellow sheets on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom and I stare at the walls and I stare at the paper memories and I think about how this is not my life and I think about how I cannot find that smile anymore and I think about how the doors are closed now.
A third is naked except for the scratches and dents that collect on anything that has existed long enough. Scratches and dents that show life. Scratches and dents that grow with time. Scratches and dents that are determined to survive years of cleaning. Scratches and dents that look just like the ones that have spread onto my skin. I drown in the yellow sheets on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom and I stare at the walls and I stare at the paper memories and I think about how this is not my life and I think about how I cannot find that smile anymore and I think about how the doors are closed now and I think about the scratches and dents that have spread onto my skin.
As I drown, I lie on my right side and my back and stomach and my left side. I think about all of the decisions I have made that put me back in the same place. Like a horse in a ring, pulled in circles, I don’t go anywhere. But I am both the horse and the one pulling it.
I am the one pulling the horse back to my bed to make the same mistakes I made the day before. I am the horse making the mistakes. I am the one pulling the horse away from everything I love. I am the horse losing. I am the one pulling the horse down an exhausting spiral. I am the horse exhausted. I am the one pulling the horse backward. I am the horse back on the twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom.
I drown in the yellow sheets on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom and I stare at the walls and I stare at the paper memories and I think about how this is not my life and I think about how I cannot find that smile anymore and I think about how the doors are closed now and I think about the scratches and dents that have spread onto my skin and I know I am the one pulling the horse and I know I am the horse.
But there was a time when I wasn’t drowning. A time when I was not on my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom. A time when those lives could have been mine. A time when I did not stare at the walls. A time when I did not stare at the paper memories. A time when I did not think about how I cannot find that smile anymore. A time when I did not think about how the doors are closed now. A time when I did not think about the scratches and dents that have spread onto my skin. A time when I did not pull the horse. A time when I was not the horse.
I went to school. I had a savings account. I had aspirations. I had inspirations. Now I lie on my right side and my back and stomach and my left side. I lie on my twin-sized bed in my childhood bedroom and I think about these stories. These stories from my past when things were peaceful, normal. I think about these stories from when I wasn’t rolling around in my bed spiraling about my jobless loveless life. I had been knocked off my axis when I dropped out of school, closed my savings account, and lost sight of my aspirations. I could not tell which way was north since I closed the door to my childhood bedroom on began to drown in the twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom.
I sit and stare and think. And when I think, it hurts.
Today, while I sat and stared and thought, I heard something: a door. It was not my door from the wall of doors, no, it was the front door. Energy I hadn’t felt in so long rushed through me. I heard shoes, heels. My mother always wore high heels to work, not out of patriarchal obligation but out of free will, she wants her presence to be heard. She had this desire for domination. I heard the heels and the keys and I left the twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom. I left the yellow sheets. I left the wall of paper memories. I left the wall of bruises. I left the wall of doors. I left behind all of the stories of people with better, cooler lives. I used my legs and they ached as they strained forward. I moved towards something. I walked down the hall, to the front door.
But there were no shoes by the door. There were no high heels thrown about. I scanned the room but I could see everything from where my feet were planted. And everything, everything was empty.
That’s when I remembered. Remembered that she was gone and not coming back. I remembered the counselor saying grief looks different for everyone. I remembered that I had seen only blank white walls since seeing her body in a dark cherry casket and the color of her favorite shoes I would never borrow again. I remembered that the counselor said I could float for a while instead of swimming, and pause for a moment instead of trying to fast forward. I remembered the hands of pity on my shoulder as everyone walked past me to say goodbye to her. I remembered what it is like to love someone that isn’t there anymore. I remembered how much stronger that loss is than the loss of yourself. I remembered how I prayed that I’d be taken too. I remembered how much I had forgotten, how disappointed I was for losing her all over again in my own mind. If I forgot she was gone would I one day forget her completely? All of this staring and thinking and drowning and not a single thought about her. I felt the loss again harder and stronger like the bright white light of the sun after passing through a dark tunnel. I remembered the sting and it stung again and it stung stronger.
I felt the weight of the memories all at once and the echoes of the emptiness of everything at the same time.
Then, I heard something again. I heard the truth of my own internalized grief. I heard the call of where I’m safe from my own thoughts. I heard the call of where my mind can quiet. I heard the call of where my mind could rest. I heard the call of the twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom. I heard the call of the yellow sheets. I heard the call of all the lives that are not my own. I heard the call of the walls. I heard the call of the paper memories. I heard the call of my lost smile. I heard the call of the closed doors. I heard the call of the scratches and dents. I heard the call to pull the horse. I heard the call to be the horse.
And like a horse in a ring, I led myself back down the hall. I went back through the door in the wall of doors and saw the wall of bruises and the wall of memories. I went back to my twin-sized bed in the corner of my childhood bedroom. I went back to thinking of those stories of people moving forward.
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