by Marble Black
When the crosswalk, that exists in a paradox, due to its faulty light system and fading paint, commands me to pause with its crisp robotic voice, I obey. I stare down at my orthopedic shoes. I’m twenty-two and the world is on fire.
I’ve been told many times that my thoughts about this aren’t unique. Every generation has a crisis spurred on either by themselves or the elite. I don’t think I care who’s to blame. I’m twenty-two and the world is on fire.
My eyes drift to the sidewalk just beneath my feet. I think about rejection. I think about what it's meant to me and what it now means – if it means anything at all. In a sense, I’d have to have something to lose for it to hold weight, and my dreams, to this day, feel too light to hold onto. I’m twenty-two and the world is on fire.
I keep still and think about myself as a person, except my head is clearer. I imagine she’s happier. I imagine she looks healthier than the person currently timing their breaths, with glimmering lights catching in her eyes and nice, white teeth. All that could’ve been, I think, but isn’t.
Suddenly, and once again, I'm staring down an elevator shaft, contemplating how far the black bleeds. A blink and I'm back to the crosswalk, thinking of this me from a different planet. The thought spins. Like an unwinding ball of yarn, it bounces and tumbles down the staircase of my mind until my lungs pinch. I can still feel the summer air against my adolescent skin. The way the world was both large and welcoming. It feels irrevocably unfair, like I’d been designed for it, only for it to now evade me. A fox amongst the trees.
I feel pathetic, and the feeling falls over me like a possession: I want to hurt myself. It’s slippery, however, elusive. I grab onto it like a fish in the stream, turn over its iridescent scales, and marvel at its gasping mouth. I picture haphazardly walking across the street as the light remains red. A car would hit me. It’d send a shock right through my body and terrorize every working organ inside me.
I’d lay on the street, sprawled out like a cat in the sun and the world would feel nothing. There’d be no light switch, no vise grip in its gut, or oddly placed panic. I’d be dead and it would be memorizing today’s crossword puzzle. At a grocery store pondering what meal to make for supper.
The realization hits me like the fantasized car. The pain is so evident inside me, I want to share it. I want to pour it into a fruit-themed glass and hand it out like freshly squeezed lemonade on a hot summer’s day. The world doesn’t want me. No one wants me. It’s an illness. It’s maddening. I want to bleed — to die. Over and over again, this fantasy swims and leaps through the stream of my consciousness. And, over and over again, I grab hold of it, that same iridescent fish. Gasping. Eyes wide. Gills fanning, praying that I’ll just let it go.
The light flashes green. I walk.
***
Marble Black currently works as a Writer/editor, and has a BA in English. When she’s not writing, she’s usually in bed. Sometimes, she goes for walks in downtown Tulsa, plans trips she’ll never take, and eats uncooked pasta. She thinks indulgence is important. She thinks happiness is key.
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