Fall. (Creative Writing.)

The leaves are this big blur of colour, he tells me. He puts a leaf in my hand and I feel the veins between my fingers. My hand is a fist and the leaf is nothing but dust. And all of that which should be so real is just a mirage, out of focus and black and white and I am tumbling down the rabbit hole towards an unknown end and when I scream, nothing comes out. I am falling and maybe flying with stolen wings, and there is nothing but this blackness falling around me.

Fall.

Fall is a blurry of activity, as though I am expected to be in ten different places at once, tutoring and smiling and acting and laughing. Although I no longer am the girl of previous years, I am expected to live up to her standard – that of perfection, and sometimes when the pressure is too much – I find myself crumbling.

Folded and unfolded and unfolding, I curl into myself.
Pull me out from inside?

Eating is what breaks me, and seeing myself in the mirror is what destroys my ability to stay strong and confident. I cannot be confident when I cannot even control my own body. If I don’t have control over that, how will I ever control my grades, my family, my future?

Another morning rest spent crying on the bathroom floor.

He never notices, perhaps because he thought that the girl of the summer would continue into the fall, and that she would be triumphant over adversity. He thought he could send me on my way, and I could succeed – that I could wear my heart-shaped glasses on the bad days to scorn the rain clouds. This simply isn’t how things work – I cannot flounce and smile in my medieval gown through the work day, when math and Spanish and school in general threaten to loom over my head and crush my every naive dream of a chance at something better. Something bigger. “I am ready,” I scream.

But I am only me. Once, in his arms – Lola, Dolly, Alice – it was enough. I’d whisper my hot readiness into his ear, and he’d take me at my word – pulling me into his arms, perching me on his knee. I was a tiny wisp of a girl, a toy, disappearing. Tiny dancer, and he’d take me out to the forest and watch me dance. A carefully rehearsed routine, every tilt of the head. I felt that I could fade into the darkness – and he was the only thing keeping me there. But now I am too solid and I hate it. I dig in to that persona and try to tear her apart, because without him I feel like nothing but I am also too much.

I am in my own head too often so I sneak time for myself – running into the school bathroom and gazing into the mirror, getting out of class to stand there as if I am in some kind of trance – a trance that allows me to only be negative, and never positive. I wish he was here, but I’ve left him behind when I moved to the city – like an abandoned toy. He can’t call, he can’t visit, so I only see him on the off chance. A meeting on a street corner, he woos me at a back table of a restaurant lit only by tea-lights. He kisses me and I hide my shadowy nature. He caresses my ribs as though he suspects the truth, but he has never accused – and I lie blatantly to cover myself. He doesn’t need that many lies, he is so easy. His time with me is coming to a close. But I can’t stand to have my memory tainted, so when I go to the bathroom after our dinner and cough up everything I forced down, I wipe my mouth so clean I’m afraid my lips will bleed. He is the one person who I could not stand to see my only way to survive.

For yes, this disease, this curse, this is my survival, this is my life.

I am fine. Say it over until it rings true. Say it till your throat bleeds. Whisper it on the bathroom floor. Feel the pain in your chest and know that you’ve lied. You’re not colorblind, you’re only crying.

Model: Jemila Spain
Song: Colorblind – Counting Crows