page 244

Opening to page 244 in my biology textbook. I trace the diagram of cellular respiration with my finger, observing the lines become soft and puffy, then becoming gaunt again. Diagrams are the art I became obsessed with. The art you can always find. Leaving school at 11 am to drive to my dentist appointment, I was now sat in the waiting room. The walls were worn and only calming in a bygone era. Spots of paint were peeled even high up on the wall. Someone must’ve snuck in after hours to do that. I cherish the times in between. The times I cant float. I dread destinations. The ends and the beginnings. Retreating into sleep. The cruel reminder that I’m alive in the morning. I dread the hours where I am forced to assess the damages. The hours where I have to acknowledge that the band-aids aren’t holding us together. I feel starved. I free fall only to land in a puddle of tree sap, fossilized and frozen in time, sheathed in amber.

Free from the confinement, I stumble into escapisms that dot the landscape. Little prisms shedding light into fractals that yearn to be seen. It’s a yearning I imitate but can never truly understand. I want to hide. I long for a quiet place to eat. The feeling of safety for even a split second. I spend time Constructing the most likely persona to be unnoticed, so I can nurture myself in private. Projecting a persona because I’m amongst a world I will never be apart of and I’m afraid. I feel fragile, as I cling to a foundation forged secretly in the shadow of an event that shouldn’t have happened. An event that swallowed years.