Writing My Way Out of The Dark
I’ve made a career writing about hurt and heartbreak. Now, I’m booking a one-way ticket out.
I am still forming. I am dorsal, fin, and bone. Surfacing from the shallows. Listening to everyone make their mouth sounds. The children smell of cotton and peppermint. I think of that first light and those tight, tiny fists. Where am I? What is this? I’d like a do-over. Their teeth storming through while the old spit tombstones out. Their faces woolen and worn. I don’t want to go just yet. What have I done? I’d like a do-over.
Both sleep heavy and complete. One heart throttles while the other thumps. Teeth still in transit.
It’s the middle we’ve made a mess of. Look at us — cracked open and sold for parts. Veneered and braced. Our sleep, disturbed. Our hearts, a wreckage. It’s the middle I can’t make sense of. We form until our bones go brittle and break and then we return to the place from where we’ve come. Wondering if we’d gotten it right. Did we leave whole and complete? Or have our parts scattered across the dark country? Our lives shaken through a sieve. Were we all shook up?
In time, we will have all been forgotten.
When I was small, there was a running joke that it was impossible for me to write a story unless someone died. In…
