Dysphoria Tastes like Graham Crackers and Go-Gurts

*Student Choice Piece*

.

my footprint is a stroke in Earth’s painting

a single artwork in her collage

just one breath against the nape of her neck;

She says nature will take over when our bodies fall

her vines twirling around rib cages

through eye sockets of skulls that once saw freckles of sunlight in the leaves

around hands that once held a beating heart to their chest

.

new life forms from our aged bones;

the trees shudder at the scent of yellowing memories,

rusting friendships;

growing through, between, over

shallow graves and carelessly sculpted headstones

The Earth is breathing as we succumb to her hands

.

I can feel it.

my knees are cracking

and my old bones ache against the whisper of a storm

I’m telling stories to the next generation’s deaf ears,

remembering when I was their age

that was so long ago—

I’m only eighteen but it feels like I’m aging like a mouse,

my life too close to the fuse for comfort.

.

I’m slipping down, waiting for the clock to swallow me

I’m listening at a slower pace

watching the noise settle.

these textures don’t feel—right

my mind is cusped almost at the edge of a thought,

a meaning, a feeling of being—

fingertips grazing rational,

I’m watching the world in third person

through foreign eyes

.

I can’t feel.

.

smell the Earth, the musty scent of leaves and damp wood

roll my hands in the dirt

let the rocks cut, skive, chisel

watch the blood drip with my heartbeat;

feel.

feel the coolness of the wind

feel the steam in my breath

feel the blood run down my palms.

ground myself in the very nature that threatens

to make me a piece of her memoir

.

a piece.

a piece of memory, an echo

a piece of childhood,

a fragment—

Hopscotch, Kool-Aid, RipStick

saving worms from the sun after summer rains

running in the cul-de-sac to feel danger—

.

Sometimes I wonder if Dysphoria is still a child. A little girl dressed in a slouchy shirt that hangs off one shoulder because her mother bought it big so she would have room to grow. I wonder if she still spits on the ground as an act of rebellion because she remembers her father scolding, “good girls don’t spit like boys”.

I wonder if her body is frail like mine, etched and molded by the tears that carved ravines down her skin. Or maybe she is stronger, maybe she tilts her chin up and sets her jaw forward, not afraid of her father’s hands.

.

hands—

hands throwing rocks into puddles

chalk handprints on the driveway

Play-Doh, Hula-hoop, Tetherball

Hiding bruises on her arms.

Popsicle, Snow Cone, Tiger’s blood

blood—

blood melting off my fingers

blood on her lips when he hit her for disobeying;

She’s not allowed to spit.

.

Maybe Dysphoria doesn’t feel like rebelling anymore, maybe she just wants you to know what she feels.

Maybe I just want you to know what I feel.

.

-Bree