Blue Blood- Blue Ocean

My mom was a camper.

She still is.

She and my niece Eva and myself visited her camp for family weekend just over a month ago.

My mom was proud.

To have her with us, yes.

But mostly, for us to see her heaven.

Camp Desoto, Mentone Alabama.

 

This camp was the home of her childhood and blue was the color of her blood.

Camp cheers echoed against the trees with little girls belting out the sounds of giants, their neck veins bulging and throats like sandpaper by sunset.

My mom took the train to camp from Louisiana every summer, staying for one month, sometimes two, singing camp songs the whole way.

 

When we stood in a circle last month, right before a game was shared, the weekend lead counselor and game extraordinaire asked us to introduce ourselves and state our age, where we were from, you know… the usual.

 

“Ohh..uhh.. you don’t have to say your age.”

She blushed, the corners of her eyes glancing up at my mom out of respect and embarrassment.

 

My mom went first.

“Well, I’m Kathleen and I’m 69 years old and this is my favorite place in the world.”

So unmistakably confident.

--

 

My mom would pull the car over first thing.

To greet the ocean.

My brothers and I would laugh, poke fun, stay in the car.

But my mom, her eyes were glued to the beauty and depth of the ocean.

Like it was her first time to see it, every time.

She belonged here.

In crowded, way too crowded Florida.

Kids on bikes, with wet hair, salty smells, and sticky fingers.

Ice cream cones galore. 

I remember watching her back as she peeled further from the boxy, Cheeto-crumb van.

Her back and everything attached to it got smaller as she was pulled from the car to the ocean, its magnetic force overpowering her need to check in or eat something or unpack.

Her pink and white striped shirt and blue shorts disappearing toward the ocean, all in a trance.

 

I’ve never seen her happier.

Cutesy Go-Getter Smiles

What matters now?

Cheez-Its and foam rollers.

A boyfriend turned husband.

A ring on my finger,

When I’m not too scared to wear it. 

A glass of wine on a Monday.

A workout video found on YouTube, taught by 3 soccer moms all wearing blue and cutesy go-getter smiles. 

A hilarious coworker who is quick to laugh at emails and intercom announcements and keeps me connected when I can count on one hand the number of friends I have in this new town, this new beginning. 

Panting my nails, slowly.

And then picking at the paint during long, sometimes pointless meetings, like a child picks at glue.

Cleaning out the fridge,

Taking out the trash.

Remembering to buy new garbage bags.

Why do I always forget to buy new garbage bags?

A wave and a smile from my 30-something neighbor, a short hopeful exchange that promises a friendship and a walk, perhaps when her four kids are at Grandma’s.

Remembering to wash my mask, to bring my mask to work, or I can’t enter the building.

Seeing new shades of red and blue on our new TV that we bought at too-crowded-for-a-pandemic Costco right after we ate 2 slices of pizza standing up.

What matters now is pink and yellow unicorn slippers bought at CVS.

Watching the Bachelorette with Lucy,

“Keeping it cool” with my dad and not lingering on his preaching.

What matters now is improving my handwriting and reading the Alicia Keys’ memoir,

Cooking winter squash and sitting at the fire.

Protecting Jim and Pam’s love, no matter what the cost.

What matters now is this. 
All of it.

Sleep-Eating

 “I saw Ruffles in the trash can this morning.”

This was Lucy, to Brandon, in our kitchen.

Lucy with her brown-rimmed glasses, the beginning of a familiar laugh tickling cheeks and buzzing at her lips, her baggy high school soccer shirt hanging off her shoulders.

“Lady Falcons” in bulky red letters laid vibrantly across a soft cement gray, a color combination only intended for high school t-shirts.

 

It was Saturday.

Saturdays are slow these days, meant for conversations like this one, in the kitchen. 

Mismatched socks, messy hair.

Coffee and maze-like exchanges about our day’s plans that are never actually plans this early, just ideas.

 

One Saturday, Prince was the topic of conversation and how we all seemed to miss that particular fan wave, and we were sad about that. (Was it too late?)

“How did he die exactly?”

Brandon explained.

“Where was he from?”

Lucy answered. 

 

This was that kind of Saturday.

 

“Yeahh.. “ Brandon inched in with a leaning voice and a side eye.

“The Ruffles… that was me.”

 

His confession was playful as that same tickling threat of a laugh circled his mouth.

 

See, sleepwalking is not exactly Brandon.

His eyes don’t easily cater to pitch-black hallways and sharp kitchen counter corners but, sleep-eating is a constant friend of his.

Chip-crunching, powerbar-smashing, and sugary fingertips are all a part of the adventure of lying next to Brandon at night.

Thankfully, I am a heavy sleeper and I hardly even notice.

Until of course, someone finds Ruffles in the trashcan.

The Worst of Sounds

I can hear it now.

The sound of my old roommate’s cat slurping water with her tiny, scratchy, leaf-like tongue.

And immediately, a look of disgust forms below my hairline.

My face wrinkles up like a comeback scrunchy. 

It is forever and always the worst sound of all sounds. 

Could it be that I simply had a very complicated relationship with that cat?

One that has involved too many scratches on my arms,

A headache-type ringing to my ears.

And an after-hours search party when she “mistakenly” slid out the back door,

Just seconds after I desperately peeled the door back with only 500 hanging items off my arms and an already spilled cup of coffee.

Why on earth did the cat need to slurp her way to Timbuktu right next to the dinner table where I would be eating food that I had been waiting for and daydreaming about all day?

All.Day. 

I couldn’t do it.

I can’t do it.

I will never do it.

I refused to spend my rent that way, sharing dinner with a slip-slop-slurpery, evil cat.

My food already cold in my hands,

I stormed off to my room.

But really...

I think the cat won that day.

And she knows it. 

An Invitation and a Walk.

Today Phyllis and I walked gravel, and then dirt, and then gravel again- in a loop.

“Want to do one more?” she asked whenever we neared the polished Ranch dressing-white fence with the megabus suburban white cars behind it.

The parking lot that, if we allowed it, bookmarked the end of our time together under this perfect patch of October sky.

 

I forget every year how pretty the fall is. 

It surprises me each October at every first chill, every first pumpkin sighting in the neighborhood or the tiniest first speck of yellow in a leaf.

Phyllis asked me this easy question like we had known each other much longer than two whole weeks. The question rolled off her tongue like a neighbor who casually locked you in to a conversation you could trust, a conversation you actually cared about. Not about the weather or the trash guy getting sloppy on his pickups, but about a favorite book or artist. It was a warm invitation that said she appreciated me, or at least it seemed that way.

 

Here’s the thing-

When Phyllis asked me to go on a walk today,

I literally hop-skipped out of the house.

I couldn’t help it.

She was and is my first friend here.

In a new town, a completely new season.

 

When I walked up to her car after first arriving to the park today,

she spilled into conversation like water.

Clear, soft, smooth.

 

You know, I didn’t know how bad I needed this-

A friend.

A girl friend.

A 63-year-old hilarious coworker now girlfriend that begins stories and statements with “Honey” and talks about Chattanooga like you wouldn’t believe. She knows back stories upon back stories of all people, places, and things here.

 

“Yes, I can do one more loop,” I kept hearing myself say, each time a bit less shy.

And I pray the loops would keep coming.

That's All You Knew.

I remember that one night.

I was in my front yard.

And it was dark outside, the darkest black dress my street had worn as long as I had known her.

 

It was one of those summer nights where I was pretending.

I was pretending to be okay,

Like I have been known to do.

(You know, when movements get compact, sticky... insignificant).

And I shrink in every way I know how.

That was the summer I worked with lots of teens- too many teens.

I taught yoga in hot rooms all over the city.

I babysat in fancy East Nashville homes and got way too used to smelling another woman’s breast milk.

And I was just plain anxious.

  

Anxiously waiting,

Anxiously guessing,

Anxiously moving,

Anxiously driving,

Anxiously knowing, and then... not knowing.

Avoiding the Truth, altogether.

I was living a lie,

Anxiously.

 

But on that oddly cool June night,

I don’t know what prompted me...

Perhaps out of habit, I looked up.

And I saw you.

 

I felt your weight- the part of your weight I could handle, anyway.

I felt your presence behind my knees,

At the tips of my fingers,

In the dryness of my throat.

And you stopped me.

You held me- the sky, the world.

Just watching, silently.

All you knew to do for me was watch.

That's all you knew.

But it was everything.

And all I knew to do was the next small thing, the next barefoot step toward my garden, my too-often-forgotten summer chore.

 

You tasted my sadness.

Sadness feels like too weak of a word, actually.

More like a paralysis of sorts.

I didn’t have the strength to make the hard decisions, to do the hard things.

All I know was that my plants needed water,

And that you were watching.

God Bless Y'all.

 My cousin owns a store called The Wrinkled Egg. 

I remember when I first heard the name.

I can’t remember the story behind the name-

I know there was one.

 

We were all at either Applebee’s or Ruby Tuesdays, 

My memory merges those two place together often… I can’t help it. 

It was the 90's and these two ruled the town.

We were all piled up in a booth, and yes we are all family, but there were officially and confidentially too many small and big pairs of hips sticking to each other.

I remember that part too.

 

My cousin told us all about the store, 

That she was starting it, that she named it, that she lived down the street from it.

Before I knew it, I was holding a brochure.

It was a trifold- a silky, orangish-reddish kind of thing that felt good to slide through my fingers.

I think I was somewhere close to 10, but that’s also the age I offer to myself when memory gets muggy.

 

If the same someone lingered at all my stories, they would have thought I must have hit the jackpot of life at age 10- all the people I met, decisions I made….

 

Anyway, I didn’t really understand the store or why she was doing it all.

It felt a little risky to me, but I do remember thinking,

“Man, she’s cool.”

 

My horse-loving, church league basketball playing, “Can we order more cheese sticks and Sprite?” self, thought she had all and every bit of her life together.

 

Her name?

Virginia.

 

Her store is still standing, thriving actually, on the edge of Asheville, North Carolina.

And she still is one of my coolest cousins.

 

During this new normal of Pandemic Times, 

I am on a handful of group texts, one of them including Virginia and other cousins and aunts and uncles across Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, California, and Tennessee.

 

“This thing is getting more and more serious, but don’t panic,” my dad preaches.

He is always the self-proclaimed preacher with text typos running through his words like tangles at the back of a little girl’s head before bedtime.

 

“Be sure to thank those in the medical field,” my cousin George chimed in.

 

“Well, I still have the store open.. and I just went and bought some extra hay for our horses to support the other small business down the road.”

(This was Virginia).

 

So much has changed even since that group text exchange at the middle of last week. 

 

“Here, watch this video to understand the spread of the virus.”
That was Aunt Wanda.

In a different group text with her husband and me (officially Uncle Frank), sweet and soft-voice Wanda would get a bit political.

But not here.

She knew her complicated audience-

(Extended) Family.

 

“God Bless Y’all.”

That was Aunt Cathy.

She never had much to say beyond blessings. 

It Was Just Us.

 We were in Florence. 

My mom and I were not used to spending this much time together.

None of the other mother-daughter combos with the twangy 

and sometimes embarrassing “We’re from the Deep-South and we know it” accents 

had invited us to dinner. 

It was just us, 

Again.

 

My mom was tired of all the walking, and I was tired of all the Trump-talk and the, 

“Oh, we’re saving this special handmade Italian lace for her wedding” talk on the bus.

Like that was the only thing that mattered in a girl’s life.

Waiting for a wedding.

 

How did I end up… here?

With all of these strangers, on a boxy and uncomfortable, loud tourist-shouting bus in Italy? (I wouldn’t necessarily say this is how I prefer to travel).

 

And what would I tell myself now, three years later?

You really don’t get trips like this with your mom.

Put your phone down- he’s not going to last, and he’s desperate.

You will soon tell all of your friends and every person that begins to say the word Italy,

that this was the best meal you’ve ever had in your life.

 

Creamy, rich pasta with deep maroon, stain-threatening, 

“It’s okay, I’m on vacation and I’m walking home anyway” red wine,

And Mom.

 

Your mom is here,

Your mom is perfect.

 

 

 

Our Sky Angel

“What does this door go to?”

 

A very innocent and common question, usually asked from a friend or a cousin or a babysitter as they eagerly and questioningly stood in the corner of my green and pink, wallpapery room

 

The door was ice cream-white but disguised with animal stickers, then later, lots and lots of photos.

These photos were tiny snapshots of a special moment at a friend’s birthday party or a sweaty, slow day at summer camp.

But either way, there were enough layered years of sticky things against that poor door that my dad would get annoyingly frustrated.

 

“This will tear off the paint,” he scolded, and I would rebelliously roll my eyes or turn a shoulder and ignore the very words that, quite literally, just filled up our space.

Like his “Debby Downer” comment never even happened. 

 

Anyway, the door.

What does it go to?

 

“The attic,” I answered back in a mature, sophisticated manner.

I usually opened the magical, mysterious door like a proud mother showing off never-ending “Why does she keep showing me these?” pictures of her new baby.

 

There was the nearly life-size dollhouse in the corner that my parents picked up in Mentone.

It was made to look just like our house at the time, green shutters and all.

 

And of course, the glow-in-the-dark stars forever pressed against the ceiling.

(Those stars decorated the exact place that my 6^thgrade best friend Caroline taught me how to put a bra on with the snaps in the front, right above my belly button, instead of blindly twisting and turning for an hour and a half to hear that final click of a snap behind me). 

 

There were my horse ribbons mounted and showcased so elegantly against the chalkboard at the back of the attic, ribbons from hunter jumper extravaganzas all across the hot, sticky state of Alabama.

 

And don’t forget the forgotten dusty drawers of my oldest brother’s basketball cards, neatly rubberbanded and stacked. 

There were so many of them, they were bound to outweigh the dresser they lived in.

 

Oh, and the old Barbie and Ken playsets up against the leaning-left “Don’t hit your head on the ceiling” corner.

 

The attic was my favorite hideaway as a kid with the same ice cream-white walls and ceiling as the door that led to its concealed quarters. 

This top-secret space was like my very own version of a glamorous, grownup studio apartment in the city.

A treehouse loft somewhere far and fancy like Birmingham, with its wood floors and perfect rectangular sky window.

 

This dreamlike window was a shared eye into the outside world-

Sometimes I borrowed the eye to look at the Sky, 

And sometimes she borrowed the eye to look at me. 

 

And I wonder, Was this where I fell in love with the color blue?

Our Sky Angel, 

She held us.

She watched our games and listened to our songs and giggles like they were her own.

 

She knew us, 

She knew me.

 

 

 

 

 

Time-Stopping Days.

I miss holding Caroline’s hand.

Always warm, sometimes sticky.

And little.

So little.

It was a part-time job.

Sometimes I think of Caroline,

And I feel a brick stack of guilt in my lower belly.

I was distracted.

Lists of chores scrolling down my head, like movie credits, tiny white-print scribbles against a backdrop of midnight black.

See, I was afraid I would forget something, and the list was my anchor-

Or so it seemed.

Sometimes, lots of times,

I was on the phone in the car a whole 40 minutes home,

Sometimes longer with traffic.

Caroline would cry every once in a while, like an alarm reminding me I wasn’t paying attention.

I would eventually hang up.

Those moments add to my ever-growing brick stack.

This time last year on our drive I would say,

“Caroline, should we count the purple trees?”

I hope she still counts them in April,

And I hope I am more present in the car next time.

No matter how much I try to wash my car, Caroline’s fingerprints are still there at the edge of the back door on the passenger side.

These were probably from the moments she waited for me to quickly, sometimes frantically, unlock the door and get her car seat settled.

And let me tell you, dealing with the car seat alone will make anyone with a brain hesitant to pursue becoming a parent- It’s impossible.

But let me tell you something else- 

If I’m being honest, I don’t want her fingerprints to be erased. 

Not yet.

Will I be a distracted parent?

You know, if I ever do have kids?

Will I forget to count the purple trees in April and sing even when I don’t want to and get off my damn phone?

My mom was distracted often, you know, with adult stuff.

We are close, and I forgive her.

We have always been close.

But I remember feeling anxious with her sometimes.

Like she was in a hurry.

She was always in a hurry, it seemed.

Perhaps in the same way I could be with Caroline in the car ride home.

But also, I remember this:

The many, many mornings I would practice my singing voice with Mom before she dropped me off at school.

Those were my favorite moments with her.

Me leaning forward toward the edge of my seat, so focused on the sound of my voice and desperate to hear her feedback after each song. 

Was I getting better?

No one was rushed, it seemed, those mornings.

And the best part?

It was just me and Mom because my brothers could drive at that point and they went to another boring building for their school.

One day Mom told me that she shared with the women at her Bible Study that those were her favorite moments with me too. 

When I would sing us all the way to school.

Time stopped on those Alabama roads, 

It just did.

I pray for more time-stopping days, always.

Regina is Russian

I run, sometimes.

I walk, hardly ever.

Until now.

When my plans have changed and my schedule has shifted, 

All by force.

Humans have fallen into the hands of Nature.

Here’s to the Coronavirus 2020.

I used to write songs in my early 20’s.

I had a lyric that sang,

“I walk all day to finally say, 

The old has gone away

And I have returned with a new name.”

The sound of it was decent.

I even tried to imitate Regina Spektor in how I emphasized “return”.

She was one of my favorites at the time.

I mean, who wouldn’t say that in 2010?

When a friend of mine first listened to this song, he kindly asked,

“Wait, how do you say ‘return’?”

I get it: I was trying too hard, and the way I sang it with a “th” sound for the t is not anywhere close to how I actually say the word.

I mean, let’s be honest, Regina is Russian. 

I am most definitely not Russian.

The meaning behind that song fell to the tune of a bad breakup and finding my voice again.

I think I was writing about my high school boyfriend who I dated for a year and a half but had some leftover stains and stubbles to deal with in college.

He kept dating my friends… kept showing up at bars and parties…you know, that kind of ex.

The type that’s hard to never see again, which is usually my style of a breakup.

The thing is, I often do this thing in relationships where I get scared to use my voice.

In fact, I shrink.

My voice gets tiny.

With age I am getting better, I promise.

My vocal chords are gaining strength and my impulse to run has weakened.

You know what?

Sometimes life calls us to walk.

Whether it be all day or for a 20 minute rush out the door when we are cooped up in our houses, quarantined for what seems like decades.

What does it look like for you, for me, for all of us, to walk right now?

To casually but mindfully take one step after another at a slower pace than normal, perhaps with an announcement or statement or yes, a “new name”… or perhaps not. 

Sometimes it’s nothing more than just that: 

A walk.

Rain Check.

Stops you in your tracks, that rain.
Slows ya down,
Shuts ya up,
Calms ya down,
... if you let it.

My rain is your rain,
We share it.
And it smells good today
As I sit on the back porch and watch the puddles form against the pavement.

Some days, not every day,
We curse at the rain.
Changing our plans every which-away.
How dare you, rain!

But Today?

It slows me down,
It shuts me up,
It calms me down,
...I'm lettin it.

The Things That Get Us Out of Bed.

Last spring, packed right between a visit back home to Alabama- the playful, sing-song voices of my niece and nephew still echoing in my ear- and what was supposed to be a visit in the other direction to White Bluff, Tennessee for a visit with my boyfriend’s family…

I got food poisoning.

Yes.

Food. 

Poisoning.

Kept me up all night.

And all night, I swapped between the bathroom and the bed constantly, like a full moon-shaped ping pong ball, tossed between a more-than tipsy Vanderbilt freshman guy and a curly-haired, mascara-heavy girl down at Clyde’s on Church Street. 

Sometimes just racing and praying I make it in time.

If you have ever had this curse of the stomach, this curse of humanity, rather… 

I’m sorry. 

And… you know. 

In a similar way to extreme weather changing your plans and cancelling the concert, postponing the dance or the baseball game or the soccer game... getting sick, (like… food poisoning sick…) literally stops you in your tracks. 

There is no moving around it.

At ALL. 

It has all authority and you have no choice but to play by the rules:

Sleep when you can.

Medicate.

Eventually eat saltines and pray you can hold it down. 

Finally, though...

I make it to my garden.

My plants need water like I need calories.

For the first time in a long time,

I can actually stand up again.

So I know it’s Time.

Here I was, coming out of a stomach bug, dazed and confused like a cast member of the Walking Dead, endlessly roaming.

I wore a blank, grossly pale face.
My limbs were nearly broken, but doing their job...just barely.

And all my movements were sticky, like I was first learning how to walk again.

The things that get us out of bed-

Sometimes they’ll surprise you. 

And there he was.

Mowing my lawn.

I sat down on my front steps, knees drawn in, just watching him.

When he sees me, he stops the lawnmower to come over.

You know... to give me a hug and check in.

I forget about the plants for a moment. 

As soon as he hugs me, I cry.

Like a little girl.

But I was okay with it.

I wanted to be near him.

As Dark as Midnight

What is happening? 

Golfball-sized eyeballs and sticky handprints, glued to the glass.

Waiting.

Waiting for truth to unfold, facts to emerge, and solid, concrete answers to lingering, ever-growing questions, like tiny beads of a mile-long necklace.

I am reminded of an aquarium.

Just standing, in awe of nature, in all of its forms.

Some of us shocked, some of us at a complete standstill.

Just watching from the other side of the glass.

I remember visiting the Chattanooga aquarium with a busload of high school students from Stratford out of East Nashville, back when bumpy roads and old, forgotten houses were still its neighbor.

Terrified I was going to lose one of the eight girls in my group,
I could hardly enjoy it.

I was constantly counting heads and looking over my shoulder like I was checking my blind spot, about to change lanes.

The hallways and handrails were as dark as midnight.

I remember a few weeks ago when Brandon and I drove to North Carolina overnight in the snow.

Terrified I was going to wreck the car and slip and slide all the way down the mountain, I could hardly enjoy it.

Threatening roads, hard-to-see cars, my lack of experience… and this time, the backdrop to our “fairytale snow” was as dark as midnight.

And this?

Well, this is completely new territory for me.

Staying home, not teaching yoga, not visiting schools and the Detention Center…

Some times, more than other times, robotically scrolling through Facebook and Instagram in search of… 

Something.

I can hardly enjoy it.

The Echo.

There is something about being backstage. 

I love and hate the feeling.

Everyone is waiting for you.

Everyone in the whole world is waiting for you.

Here I stand, wobbly unshaved knees.

Limited Too attire.

Twelve years old.

Holding (or not holding) a deep, empty pit in the cave of my stomach.

I feel hollow inside.

Trying to keep my mouth from going dry, I swallow nervously.

I look down at the floor a couple of times.

They need to sweep back here, I tell myself.

OMG! What do I do with my hands?!

A silent cry goes off in my head, like a fire alarm.

Kids racing outside.. light-up Sketcher shoes from Payless rub and screech against the mismatched tile floor.

“Is it real? Is it real? Is it real?!” they ask.

Teachers hurry them along.

I wonder if I will be able to see my Mom in the audience.

And if so... 

Will that make all this better or worse?

Ya know, this whole being on a stage thing is new for me.

Do I crave this kind of attention?

I know some people do.

I don’t think I do?

I mean, yes.. I did grow up performing for my mom and her friends, belting out “Tomorrow” and “Hard Knock Life” from the Annie movie, standing behind that ugly hunter green, potato chip-stained couch, (the one with the pink fringe at the corners, on purpose).

And I did tend to impulsively run outside to the front yard when I had a new song lyric in my head. I wanted to see what it felt like to sing my new hit with the breeze in my hair and the hand motions I had just made up to go along with the words. My first song was about a blue jay. My right palm would paint the sky above me, and I would shake my hips a little bit, like the girls always did on television. That memory still tugs at me from time to time, taps me on the elbow and whispers, “Remember?”

Oh, and I did stay up for hours on end learning every single word of the Dixie Chicks hits, “There’s Your Trouble”, “Wide Open Spaces”, and “Cowboy Take Me Away”.

But those moments were Pretend.

Not the same, right?

I could mess up, laugh about it, shrug my shoulders, and keep going. 

Something about this whole stage thing, it felt… 

Well... 

Fake.

This was different. 

And I wasn’t ready for it.

I wasn’t made for it.

Mom or no Mom in the audience.

My name is eventually called. 

I walk out on the stage, not able to see a thing under those bright lights, I wrap my small fingers around the microphone, my lips trembling.

What was I doing?

This isn’t me.

Words finally stumble out of my mouth, my voice sounded decent, I guess, but I could do better.

I was internally judging myself in real-time, my increasingly cruel inner dialogue becoming the constant echo to my voice.

I just wanted this 3 minutes to be over.

This Sara Evans song Needed.To.End.

No more proving anything to myself after this.

No more bright lights or fluttering heartbeat, it's too painful.

What am I even wearing?

Again, a silent cry goes off inside my head.

The echo.

I am embarrassed.
I am so embarrassed.

Please let this song end early.

Can the sound guy hit the wrong button in the back and just turn my microphone off? 

Is that possible?

Please, God.

Get me off of this stage, back in the comfort of those dark corners where no one can see me. Give me those hallways with the unswept, dusty wooden floors- Back where I belong.

…….

Has that ever happened to you?

On the outside you are performing, words leave your body with ease or unease.

You put on a smile and a happy face, like a preteen playing with makeup.

You play the part.

You do the thing.

But inside?

Inside the basement of your thoughts, you are tearing yourself down.

Constantly cursing at yourself.

Constantly talking down at yourself.

You shame your outfit and every single ounce of your being.

Like a cat clawing away at your very own soul.

A nightmare inside.

What is that?

If the audience could hear that...

Would they still clap??