Between before, between after, parts of me that refuse to become former—the ones that cling on until they consume me. In some ways, I’ve become older and wiser, in others, younger and tempered, slamming my feet on the ground, palms slapping my skull until it rings, hoping that the bell will toll in those that think them, an island. Iron echoing until it reaches my blood, minerals pining for a peer, from liquid that made me.
My mask was never me, but someone who could carry me through the thick, someone who could show that, I am like you, don’t you see? The mask that brought me back hollow, unknowing that behind the veil, the face had no features, that were mine.
The basement was a place to play, the carpet fuzzed in white, the area behind the couch was dimmed by the flickering screen, a forgotten landscape of my childhood. Toys, packed away in bins, far and plasticized from my imagination. Home alone. Young enough to step-stool up to the stove, eating broken chunks of raw ramen noodles, liberated from plastic, before plunking them into the boiling water. Young enough to crack an egg after it simmered, to let the slick yellow yolk snake off into tendrils—bright broccoli stems, soaked up every last bit of msg, until each bite was bliss. Young enough to turn on the TV, slurping up noodles, not knowing that many years later, loneliness was louder than the child left alone.
My back was facing the me, I am now. The one sitting down, in the dark, watching pictures move behind glass. The me, I am now, full of fear—wary to approach—wanting to know, what happened to you? Between before, between after, you were different. Colors became muddied and dim, dampened by something that changed you.
I tread carefully, afraid that my face, will be one I don’t recognize—smeared and solipsized, posture curved in shapes of ghosts, gutted by anything that resembled laughter. To stand in front of you, would mean I’d be devoured… devoured by everything outside of me. To approach you, was to approach the parts of me that had been choked from the grip of the stray child, who wanted life to be sublime.
Between before, between after, the thought of what others thought, almost never crossed me. Walking about the world, like existing was easy, like looking others dead in the eye, when they would spew hatred, searing into them, you could never fuck with me. Things were simpler back then, I knew myself, before little by little, small pieces were shaken and shattered, collecting shards until the reflection was the mask—fragmenting me into different dimensions… each piece, a part of someone who never told me how to say—
no.