Is This Enough?

Arianna Kanji

Two years ago, I would have eaten away at the rotting spreading its tentacles along my face until my lips were stained blue. I would have spit it out onto the backs of little girls' heads like chewing gum, watching it seep into their hair, the wooden slats of a principal's desk. Three years ago, I would have dug nails along the garish pink hues surrounding my sleeping body until my blood changed its color to crimson, or maybe licked every piece of withering paint from gravel. Chalk dust, white lines, three words. Fake smiles, face paint, album covers collecting dust on ruined highways. Is this realistic enough for you?

Four years ago, I would have believed you, had you spoken of disease on the side of the road with dolls’ heads clasped between your fingers and cherry lip balm smeared over your eyelids. I’d have waited near the side of the bed, your breath waning away and up like waves on a shore. Bony shoulder turned down into a useless semi circle, an infant screaming for no other reason than to fill the silence. Five years ago, there was nail polish on the side of my head, streaming down my cheeks. Pink and fluorescent. Blueish green and wilting. Is this tragic enough for you?

Five years ago, I would have scoffed at the children playing hopscotch in the yard, before hitching a skirt up to my knees and tumbling off a twisting tree branch. Anything that presses itself into the imprint on the ground is a sin. Make no mark. Let nobody remember your name. Press vomit-stained hair into little bags and smile with spit along your outer lip. Disgusting, horrendous, glow stick juice on cottage walls. Finger painting, swing sets, skin against pavement. Is this unfair enough for you?

Fourteen years ago, life was still. There were no worries about the ever knowing, always terrorizing concept of growth. One cannot gaze down at a young soul not yet trapped in a disfigured body and wonder who they could possibly turn out to be. Like gazing at the ant scrambling over your foot, there is no point to giving it an identity it could not possibly possess. Five years ago, the outside world felt akin to the abandoned carcass of a chestnut tree in the woods. Every bit rotting, every cockroach and many legged insects yet another obstacle. Four years ago, I could not speak. Three years ago, I could not walk. Two years ago, I could not think. 

A year ago, I would not have been able to write this. My fingers too cracked and bloodied. My calluses too broken-open and torn. They’ve been sown up with disintegrating black thread, spots of mold on a winter day. Is that important enough for you? Or should I stop, and only return once I’m older and wiser, and with claw marks dug under my skin, and peach pink fumes tattooed on my lips?