I was born with thoughts the color of morning.
When that 10 hours of labor that my mother repeatedly brings up was over and I kicked at the air
that would become both prison and stronghold and they
wrapped me in a false net of blankets,
when I cried
it was simple.
I wanted my mother.
You see, when you are born and you are birthed with a mind cracked
open
you want to grow strong and fast and outrun the sugary smell of the breezes caramelizing to smoke, you don’t realize that adulthood as it is recognized in society is only a slow sewing
shut
of the mind.
I was a calf at three, stumbling on hooves that were given me to stabilize, not trip over, lisping my words in the shape of autumn leaves. My sweater baggy, not for the first time.
I was seven and shouting, I was finding my voice and I used it, and no I did NOT agree and I would tell you so
gladly.
12 and moving away, and you’re running, driving, stumbling across the country with your boxes and your CD player, and who cares what name they give “retreat”
it’s still running
away.
13 and you’re looking around and realizing that all the people around you have been molded in the same shell, and you
honey
are an outsider.
14, 15, and you cover your ears to avoid the questions you know they are asking, spaghetti arms and the sleeves that cover them in Fair Elise sheet music and Ave Maria and Five For Fighting in your ears, idiot girl, naive kid, and your sister is asking why Mama is yelling at you and Daddy has his hand over his face and girl, what the hell does gray have to do with the
taste
of a rainstorm in winter
?
What were you thinking? There are still monsters under your bed but they know your full name now and they’re calling and you walk at night to escape the sound of your friend’s sobs, because you know she is beautiful but she sure hell doesn’t, score marks on their arms like a cup measuring the ways you all have failed her.
Honey?
Sweetheart?
Where are you girl, I’ve been talking to you for the past hour but did you nod your head yes, did you listen, no.
They taught you to count so you do, one bite is 10 calories, five is too much.
Too much is now a number, a bad omen, triple sixes, “don’t look into the light, MaryAnne!”
And want is simple again
because the peace I, We, want is no longer there, and my tears are cold, nails plum-purple, my eyes are angry and my ears are throbbing.
They braided the strips of newspaper together and they tied your wings with them, but the writing on the wall, don’t you recognize your own
handwriting?
Button-downs and gypsy skirts, the fine hairs on my forearms are stirred in a hush.
You learn to relearn, reiterate, and this is the penultimate lesson you will teach, never your
last.
Spit out your last mouthful of broken glass,
didn’t you recognize, the door is in the wall of your wire cage?
I am 16 YEARS OF AGE
You climb that skyscraper wall, you jump that fence, and you start running, because forward movement is never a retreat.
I am 16, and my pen, mine, will write the rest of my own story.
I am not just a name, I am a nonexistent line that I will repeatedly cross and you
are no boss
of me.
I said, as I picked my feet up, I’m free, this is me, this is who I am.
And when I took my breath inward to inhale the morning, I found the answer to your question, that yes, I am now thinking
in the future tense.