Now Would Be a Good Time to Be Anyone But Me
People often say that art is a reflection of the soul. Then what is a soul when the art is torn and unfinished? Maybe I'll never know, I don't know as much as I claim to be smart. I mean— I'm supposed to be smart. I make good grades, and I'm told I'm gifted,but I always seem to have more questions than answers. My own brain is a mystery, and I'm the one in control of it.
Either way, I made my way towards the train tracks with my questions in tow. Keeping my eyes on the ground, I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my faded blue jeans. I thank every higher power that it was a free dress down day. In the distance, I heard rolling thunder. I groaned for what felt like hours. Reaching for a hood, I realized I was wearing my leather jacket, which didn't have a hood.
"Well, that's just great!"
Shaking my head, I picked up the pace, trying to get home before the storm. Rainbow beat down on my skin as I pounded past the train tracks. Running like a bat out of hell, I flipped out my phone to text my mother. She was worried. Of course she was. I'm running home with only a heavy school bag and a torn leather jacket on me. My glasses were blotted with rain, clouding my vision. I stopped in my tracks and wiped my glasses.
"Isn't New Jersey weather just divine," I mumbled with scorn. As I picked up my walk, I ran into a sign.
Road Work Ahead
Shaking my head, I changed directions. Impulsively, I turned around to see why the road was closed. Construction workers drove large trucks hauling off wood and giant balls of steel. Sharp directions were being hollered in all directions. A new house was being made. A better house. A house I could never live in because of our unjust world. The house was elegant and angelic. It was marble like the sculptures of ancient Greece. There were large posts like the doors looking like the pillars of Heavan.
Its beauty brought me envy. I could never have the luxury of the renter. The world wouldn't allow it. I put my head in my hands. It shouldn't be a big deal. It was just the devils last chance to make me hate what I have. I was grateful for what I had. My family, my accomplishments, my health...
I let my thoughts wander aside entered my house.
"I'm home!" My mom rushed over to me. She bombarded me with questions, and I felt my mind grow weary. I felt like a zombie as I changed out of my damp clothes.
"What took you so long!?" I turned around sheepishly.
"Uhhh I—"
"Because she walks like a snail! No, wait! Even the snail is faster than her!"
I rolled my eyes at my brother's intervention.
"I was walking normally until the rain started. I didn't know it was supposed to rain, and people were working on the streets I usually cross."
Sometimes, I wonder how my brother and I haven't gone crazy around each other— I mean, more than we already are. We're about as alike as fire and ice are in personality. There's something poetically cliché about having a quiet but intelligent oldest daughter and a sociable and intelligent younger son. Praised for the same reason, but seen in different lights. Something gnawed at me, and I guess it showed on my face.
"What's wrong," asked my mother.
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me! I see it on your face." She looked at me with annoyance while I frantically shook my head.
She let me be after that. I fumbled to the corner between my bed and desk. Sliding down, my mind filtered out only one question.
What went wrong?
Again, I had no answers. The future was supposed to be good, they said. High school was supposed to be our golden years. All the awards, straight A's, they couldn't be for nothing. Right?
Still, no answers.
My questions were interrupted by a blaring and horn and wheezes. A '57 Chevy pulled into the driveway across the street. It was as blue as the ocean and looked as polluted as one. Vintage, but not old enough to be considered antique. Something about it lured me like an anglerfish to its prey. Was it the color? Was it the fact it was still used? Or was it its look that resembled a broken person. Vibrant but dented, clinging to its last resort. Its sputters were cries of help and oil stains resembled dried tears I'm the dim light.
Whatever it was, I couldn't make it let me go.
Ironically Alive
Five are alive.
Out of thirteen people, only five of us were left. My head spun as blue stretched out as far as the eye could see. Everything felt heavy, and my vision blurred.
"We should have taken another route," my mate groaned. I felt my head bobble. Everyone was doubled over each other, nauseous and limp.
The waves seemed like they crashed louder than they were. My ears buzzed with the long gone screams of the rest of the crew. I tried to push it out of my mind. Everything was gone. Our crew. Our ship. Our supplies. Everything. All we had left was this lifeboat and the few scraps of food in our hands. I was alive, but I could barely feel it. Death tinged through my body even if life had not let its grip loose yet.
We were stuck in the vast void of blue. The salt in the air closed up my lungs.
"What's that," a faint voice explained. My head instinctively went up.
Land.
Just because
I'm 8 and I always like masculine female characters the most in shows. Just cuz they're cooler. I'm 10 and I sometimes look up YouTube videos of girls kissing. Just cuz I'm curious. I'm 13 and I have a huge crush on a female celebrity. Just cuz she's hot. I'm 15 and I have a crush on my best friend. Of course, it's just cuz she's nice.
Now, I've started a club that works to spread awareness and acceptance for the LBGTQ+ community. I have an amazing girlfriend who loves watching lesbian shows with me.
Just because...
Maybe I'm lesbian?
i have a resume in evolution. i can give you a list of all the words and terms i've used to introduce myself. i stopped collecting my references a while ago because my relationships became interviews, especially my relationship with myself.
"how do you qualify for this position?"
every day. over and over again. measuring my insides like a ritual.
i'm proud to have the capacity to love anyone. to be able to see each human as they are without any prerequisites is my most beautiful quality.
my resume has become outdated, it couldn't fit all the love i feel.
The Depth of Endless Laundry
The hardest part of life is laundry, the endless piles of laundry that never end. The folding, ironing, putting it away, only to do another load. And another load, and another load. Even with death occurs, disease, or heartbreak, you'll still have to do the laundry. Until the day you die you'll be folding laundry. There are no breaks. A break from laundry means piles build in the corners and the kids no longer have clean underwear, your husband goes to work in mismatching shirts. Taking a break means your whole household falls into chaos. I shouldn't complain. A hundred years ago they had to wash clothes by hand. Yet they also didn't own so many clothes, so much stuff that needs to be washed. They probably didn't buy socks every time they got mismatched in the dryer. The whole house is just drowning in socks. Why do the kids need thirty outfits each? Why do we own so many comforters?
Acceptance
My father struggled in school. In time, they realized he couldn't tell red from green, yellow from gray, etc. He was born this way--not the norm... anomaly... different. He didn't have a choice. He had a preferred label, but that wasn't what he heard when the kids talked about him.
In the military, colorblind soldiers are invaluable. Next to motion, normal people rely on color to locate objects. Colorblind people rely on shapes instead, making them uniquely adept at locating snipers hiding in lush jungles. This thing he hated saved lives. The labels changed.
Nice feeling--to read that: the labels changed. Regardless, he was still colorblind. Discharged after losing a leg, life went on. Never asked Congress to change traffic lights to suit his condition. No DAV hats.
Technology advanced... surfing the web, I discovered EnChroma-- eyeglasses which grant full-color-vision to many colorblind people.
Holy shit! I bought them immediately!
His birthday--don't remember which one--late sixties maybe. Mom agreed we'd meet at a nursery; then pizza. He read the box--severe skepticism, opened it.
This man--Vietnam-veteran, disciplinarian, staunch conservative, husband, father--saw brilliant, vivid color for the first time in his life. Red petals, green leaves, yellow pots. Son-of-a-bitch, white clouds contrasted by blue sky! He saw purples, browns... real greys. He saw his wife... saw her tanned flesh, green eyes, pink lips, ridiculous orange pants... a world of color.
He returned the glasses three days later.
Labels are just words. People think labels have the power to alter truth. They do not. The creation of the label, cisgender, is a loophole designed deliberately to suggest that truth is optional. This man held "normalcy" in the palm of his hand and rejected it, epitomizing self-acceptance. Diminishing such character by labeling him "cis-sighted" would be an abomination.
Acceptance begins with self.
The yellow umbrella
Hope is a funny thing, one second it's in your grasp and the next it slips through your fingers. All the light had fled from my life, I had no reason to exist. Nothing to look forward to, only things to look back at. I knew my best days were far behind me. It was school morning, the sun was hidden behind the clouds, not willing to witness my plan. It wasn't elaborate, but I had been thinking of it for a long time. I had been wondering when I'd finally snap and the day before I had. My last reason had left, the only way I could keep living was convincing myself things would get better, but I'm a bad liar.
"Of course, I can't even die peacefully." I mumbled as the raindrops hit the windows of the bus. I was standing up, the bus was full. School was a few stops away but I'd be getting off at the next one. Where I could look at the water rushing beneath me when I stand on the ledge. The rain grew stronger, the sky was crying for me, but I couldn't feel anything. I had reached my resolve and I wouldn't let myself waver. All of a sudden I was pushed forward, a man in work clothes had bumped into me.
"I'm sorry, are you okay?" He asked me, I bit back a bitter retort at the sincerity in his voice.
"Yes, I'm fine." I lied. He shuffled to his seat and in a few minutes the bus halted. I shuffled to the front and the doors opened. A gust of cold air made me shiver and I braced myself as I started moving out into the cold.
"Wait! Hold on!" The man ran up to me with a bright yellow umbrella in his hand, he offered in to me. I narrowed my eyes wondering if it was money he wanted. "As a apology." He explained, but I didn't buy it. He took my hand and placed the umbrella in it, securing my fingers around the handle. "You can return it to me tomorrow, I'll be on the bus." He went back to his seat and I stumbled out, opening the umbrella and shielding myself from the rain. I don't know what it was that touched me so much, maybe it was the small act of kindness, or maybe it was because I was scared, perhaps it was even the bright yellow color that made my eyes sore - whatever it was evoked cries I had never heard myself let out. I didn't feel like I was the one crying, I felt as if I was watching it happen. I had to return the umbrella, so I decided to struggle through another day. I never saw him again, he was never on the bus, but everyday I sat at the bus stop with the yellow umbrella in had. Something as silly as that had saved my life.
- Megan Menezes
Crossroad
I put my pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. I brush my teeth with Colgate toothpaste, twice a day. I pick between light and dark roast coffee at Starbucks. I choose what music station to listen to in the car on the way to work. I can't change a tire, but I can belt out every word to Rhianna's "Disturbia."
What I don't tell anyone, or admit to myself, is that in between all these routine moments, I am panicking. Any moment can turn into a downward spiral. All I have to do is think about my existence, my past, my pain.
It's a tic. It's a voice in my head, unconscious - I walk into rooms and look around at the ceiling, thinking about where I could hang a rope. I stare too long at sharp objects. My mind is not my friend.
I come to a personal crossroads every day. Do I choose the path where I destroy myself, or the path where I survive?
I didn't think I'd live this long. I'm stunted. I have limped along to get this far, thinking only in terms of living to the weekend. My younger sibling has since gone to graduate school at a university akin to Harvard, gotten a job that pays almost 100K, has a child with an adoring husband. I'm left wondering, what have I done with my life? I think back to therapy, where I was taught to "turn the mind" - think about positivity in the face of sadness. I have spent fifteen years turning the mind and I am tired.
The terrifying part is it's not black and white. Good brain, bad brain. Pain, happiness. The unconscious and destructive part of my brain that leads me to think negatively often bleeds into the rational, sane part of my brain. Like an addict, I have to sometimes physically remove myself from certain environments lest I be tempted by certain self-destruction. But sometimes it's not that easy.
Think of it as like a person on a diet. They aren't going to wander into an ice cream shop, say. They don't seek out what they are trying to avoid. But then they go to a birthday party - in my world, this is akin to being alone for too long, staying in bed all day. The person on a diet might cave, say, I'll just have one bite of ice cream. But one bite is all it takes. In my world, one "bad" thought and it could lead to hospitalization.
I live very carefully. I think very carefully. I think with other people - I'm going to go ahead and use the word "neurotypical" - they can trust their thoughts. They don't live moment to moment at a crossroads in their own mind. To inflict pain, to not inflict pain. I know I have a disease. I'm addicted to pain, maybe, in love with my own suffering. But that's just it - there's the "bad" part of my brain, telling me I want it.
Every day is waking up to a new crossroads, picking which path to go down. Every day I have to choose to be happy and sane, go down that particular path. Just like I put my pants on one leg at a time every morning, it's always a new day, a new battle, a new resolve to beat my own internal monologue.