Anyways, I Came Home
I would advise your first frat party not to be the same as Halloween, because some shit will happen completely beyond your control and you’ll be left thinking how fucked up you are, but it’s not you, it’s literally everybody. Also, I would advise you not to take advice from me, because I am a terrible judge of character (work in progress), and based on my past actions and decisions, you should run as fast as you can away from me. But if you’re reading past this point, hey, you don’t hate me.
Let me tell you a story first. Once upon a time there was a bird who was banished from her home. She flew across oceans toward anyone who would take her in. The wound was too fresh. Even the thought of never going back hollowed her out, so she gave her sorrow to anyone who would hold it for a while, and then she flew on.
She made true homes along the way. One was a straw nest that gave way almost at once, though it still made her feel safe. Then she found a brick tower, so high that no treacherous human could ever reach it, and she thought she had finally outflown every harm.
A terrible thunderstorm came and tore that tower down too.
She thought it must be her. She was the one carrying so much bad luck that nothing could stand against it.
I walked through streets and streets of people who are not themselves, pushed around in a circle, faces I recognise and yet don’t, fake courage filling my face and my eyes as I lift up my hands and let myself be free, because in a crowd how would it matter if I am myself or someone else. I put on a show, not in my mind but I’m still there. A gut feeling told me to run away, a face painted silver, a dress made of gold, a scarf on someone’s neck, and a repetitive jacket cloud my vision, take over my mind. I try to talk, I fall and I laugh as I remember, I was so innocent, I apologise, and I apologise, I hold hands with someone I’ve never truly talked to before, arm in arm I say the sorrow of my life and I see a sweet smile, we’re taking photos in front of lit trees, it’s midnight, how are the trees lit, I make conversation, divert from the topic which eats away my soul, I am who I am and I am a princess and gosh, am I cold, I am so cold, my hands freeze as they curl up against the bag with leftover burrito, I am smart? Someone said so, she is sweet, she is kind, we sit around a table, and two lights, it feels like a dream, none of it was real, and yet I lived through it.
The bird fell to the ground and cried rivers, telling her tragedy to anyone who would listen. She moved and moved, and the sadness moved with her. Then she reached a garden where the air was as fresh as mist on a cold morning, and the flowers were so tall they should have frightened her, but their enormity comforted her instead. She hoped she might reach the top of them someday. Nobody there knew her or her tragedy, so she pretended she had none. She couldn’t stay long, because the nightmares would catch up. But as long as she kept moving, branch to branch, maybe her luck would be undone by all that beauty, and she would finally live.
The music drops lower, or maybe I stop hearing it. Someone stands across from me in a brown hat, a little crooked, and I laugh before a word is said. I reach out and touch the collar of the jacket, just to check it’s real, and it’s allowed. Then the colour of my sweater is named, the one I wore the first time we met, and I didn’t think anyone had been looking, I didn’t think anyone remembered. I melt. I actually melt, my knees go soft, my face goes warm, and everything I rehearsed is gone. The silver and the gold and the noise all blur behind. I want to stay. There is a thought in my mind, a presence, a person, and so I step back, one small step, the kind you take when you’re afraid of how much you want something, it feels like guilt, and when I look up the space where they were is full of other people. I am standing in the middle of a crowd, abandoned, and still smiling. Maybe the hat wasn’t brown, it was black or dark, I can’t remember anymore.
She left feathers everywhere she went. They were a colour all her own, a tinge of sage green under muted blue, flecked with pink and purple. She worried she had left too many behind as she crossed from branch to branch, making a home that changed with every landing. Then she realised it didn’t matter. Everyone loses all their feathers one day or another. She only had to make it count where she let them fall, and beyond that the past was just a feather, no longer her tragedy. She flew high above.
Guilt consumes me for a minute, in the silence, clothes on the floor of my home, but I say no. And what do I want? What do I want? That is a dangerous question, so I divert again, to everlasting conversations, and my fear is heard. Then I see my screen, navigating the streets, making sure everyone is there, counting heads. We can’t lose anybody. No. I am home. I have changed, my Spider-Man t-shirt under my blanket, my eyes close, I make up a fantasy, it doesn’t last, and I fall asleep.
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