#status: second draft

Rest is not for the weary, but for the children who broke their legs and were told to keep walking.

My body is a museum of diseases and ailments and illnesses. All of them tried to kill me at one point or another with their poison and slingshots and arrows. The bricks of my museum are still standing. But, every day, I wonder, what will happen when I start hearing gunshots?

I'm being better, or at least trying, for that child who only knew anger in two forms. One was loud, footsteps from work boots as they stomped up the stairs, yells that reeked of Sam Adams or Corona, and punches thrown in the yard. The other was a silence over a cup of coffee, a glare cold enough to freeze me in place, and I shrank into the floor. I refuse to let that child think there are only two forms, and I refuse to let that child not be safe. I'm being better for them. I will be safe for them.

I can open a book and exist in peace amongst elves, dwarves, aliens, dragons, and more. Yet, in reality, the world I live in, breathe in, exist in--no, my existence is wrong. Church bells do not ring for people like me, or so I'm told. Therefore, my rosary beads collect dust while I read books that dare to mention me by name, dare to tell me I can be happy. My existence is not meant for hellfire, burned like the witches before me. When reality decides I too have rights, freedoms, and a place that isn't a stake, noose, or Hell, I'll come back. For now, I'll rest within the pages that welcome me as if I've always been there.

I don't understand why I can pick up a newspaper and only see the black and white, never the nuance of the grey stories printed on paper. I know they exist. I know the world exists in more than the plain I see. So why does trying to view more make my brain bleed? I don't know. All I can do is use the newspaper as a bandage to try and stop the bleeding as red seeps into my black and white world. I have to look borderline insane for making the joke: "What's black, white, and red all over?" Not realizing that my bloody newspaper became my red flag.

I realized today that you still had a hold on me. I thought, after all these years, and after I ran away, that your grip lessened. But, no. One of the cruelest things you did never left a single mark on my body. You inflicted wounds onto every single person who dared to utter words of love to me. All I could respond with was, "I don't believe you." I never trusted other people could love, much less find my existence palatable, because you taught me so. You taught me not to take someone at their word because your version of love was constant character critiques all while making me wonder what I did this time to earn your ire. Was it the way I talked or how I smiled for five seconds too long? "Sit up straighter." "Stop talking so much." "Lose weight. You're fat." Nothing was good enough. But, I don't want to hear your voice in the people who love me. Mom, I need you to let go.

"I don't want kids," is such a hard thing to say. Trained to put my needs last from the second I no longer needed a diaper, I should want to bring new life into the world. To love it To teach it all the hard-earned lessons I learned. To watch it grow and flourish from a tiny seed planted in the ground to a tree with bark stronger than steel and leaves greener than the Emerald City. Well, that's the ideal. Was. The truth was that I couldn't bear new life. A tiny seed couldn't come from me, and the dirt I grew in couldn't be called fertile. I was not a healthy tree. Even then, I could not utter a simple truth: "I don't want kids." My needs came last, my wants not quantifiable. I had to want them. I was trained to. All women are, or at least too many are. How could I not want them. Was I not a child once too? I was. The childhood I remember had mere glimpses of happiness those times when I succeeded at being the prop my parents could brag about to their friends, coworkers, extended family, and strangers alike. Any second I wasn't of use, I was either alone, or I was reminded that love is conditional. That I didn't deserve it most days. I was otherwise inconvenient. I was the painted flower in my parents' perfect garden, made to be something I'm not and never could be. Hardly watered, my soil garbage, I never saw sunlight. I was a child once. And I don't want to have any. I should not have to justify why to anyone. Least of all to myself.

To the poetry professor who told me, all while my peers listened on with vague interest, that I wouldn't succeed because I took your writing prompts too literally: I tried. I tried to understand how the rest of the room took your prompts and were able to write stories I could taste and see while my brain spat out facts and figures that read like a textbook. We all heard the same prompt, so why was I the only one failing? In a room of maybe fifteen people at most, I felt alone. The plucked chicken among beautifully feathered peacocks who knew how to strut. I never stopped trying to understand, dear professor, for this was not the first or the second or the hundredth time my literal brain set me apart. Your words remained in my head, playing on repeat nearly every time I sat down to write. Or have a conversation. Umpteen forgotten poems and millions of misconstrued dialogues later, I wondered a basic question: is something wrong with me? Was my inability to understand your tone, and whether or not you meant your words as a playful jab instead of a criticism I needed to learn from, a fault in my programming? I didn't know. Moreover, I had to wonder if you were right. Whether or not you are, the words you spoke to me in a college classroom in New Hampshire all the way back in 2011 kept echoing, and they are part of why I wait for a diagnosis for autism. I have to know why my brain could not and would not understand the world the way you and my classmates and so many others did. Literally.