15.18 Ounces

Ever since I opened my eyes darkness surrounded me. It’s calming. I don’t find the void menacing. No need for alarm, it doesn’t cause anxiety or fear within me.

In truth, the shadows encompass me. I prefer staying within my contracting biological coffin. Dead to the world, really. An unseen annoyance is being ogled over because suddenly the sedated and diabolical community bears compassion and curiosity.

“Sorry, can I?”

“What is it?”

“I hope you don’t mind,”

“I remember my time.”

I heard them say, it, clearly enough. The voices. Many. These are not the usual. They’re more singsongish, winey intrusiveness, not melodic and caring in their overture. I’m not sure what to tell you. I have no idea. Even on the outside of the blanket of darkness, people remain uneducated about what it is. Making up their own solutions. The light I see is diffused in red. Plus, I thought I was no longer an it. An afterthought, undue burden, mistaken guilty pleasure. More voices, high-pitched laughter or is that a warning that the brakes are failing.

Thank you for not discarding me. Putting me at the forefront of your mind must be trying. I can’t say if it were under any other circumstances, I would have fought to defend my place in history or yours for a matter of fact. I am a cordial bemused carny. I eat, sleep and do anything my body wants, freely without remorse. I extend your body to full capacity. Push it past the figure eight, into the letter “B” a broad, bugling bump. Just me. Not a doubling or tripling. Simply stated, if my conception was a well-thought-out plan. I guess this was something you are willing to pay out in hopes you may have some future returns.

Was it a slip of mickey, or when yes became no, or no stood for no that you realized, I may exist? The damage I may put on you physically and mentally.

It’s gone. The train of laughter. Muffled silence echoes in my mind. No pictures. An ocean of sound, a sea of blackish-red. The volume rises. What happened to the songstress? There are expectations? Well, that’s unfair. I have no expectations of you. But now, I see, I must. What hovel can I shove your experiences in and direct you to extinguish them? Have you start all over again, because your clandestine behaviours committed have brought unrest and mistrust. This is what I am hearing through muted lips. I turn my body away from the noise. I kick in frustration, I understand too much and know too little.

“You’re carrying high, it’s a girl.”

Your willingness to protect me. Your instincts take root and sprout. Now an innate characteristic that compels you to look over me. What a shame you and I won’t know my outcome until the obituaries.

“You’re hanging low, it’s gotta be a boy.”

Life. Death. Is it a balancing act? You or I could be on the precipice of both. I could be the cause of your demise and your joy. I shouldn’t be given this role. The pressure is to much for someone who only offers nakedness and an immediate complaint. I do not want to fight for who lives or be lifeless and become a constant path to sorrow.

That thought alone causes me to reevaluate my current conundrum. I haven’t had the urge or desire to seek any worldly opinion. I haven’t taken a breath yet. Which is a lie. Oxygen is freely available in this void. I’m getting worked up and without just cause. Allowing the sins of others to somehow penetrate my cerebral cortex. It’s the deeper throatier sounds that leads me to a litany of cascading fears. I’m nameless. Trying to make my situation direr than it is. It booms, rippling through me. Naming the possibilities like presents on a list. Given time, I’ll be cheating, plotting against my neighbour, craving violence, allowing lust and destructive behaviour to consume my thoughts. Me face down. Endless possibilities. I kick in desperation; you have a dream for me, they make it a nightmare for us.

The response to my presumed confirmation is loud and reverberates like Trombone Shorty’s Suburbia in my cramped space. I stretch. Listen. Hear everything but listen to one thing. The heartbeats. Cautiously believing civility would oversee the band-aiding of my future. A future where the past grips us and replants itself making it hard to wish for a joyous tomorrow. I stretch, kick at the madness.

I swallow. Push against the thick film. The songstress's voice is a low rumble, it bubbles in my eardrum. There is more promise I have, unknown, unused, untapped potential that twists and morphs into a vision of a social hierarchy that collapses due to the environmental catastrophe that could very well be my origin.

What will I deal with? Will I be pushed to choose or forced to love? Love? Hate? Am I a mound of clay on a potter’s wheel? Shapeless? The thunderous voice cracks and the songstress goes silent. I hear nothing. A sourness is in my mouth. What will I face? I’m purposely here, then in minutes on the side of a milk carton. Publicized, because I looked and felt like a threat. Filled with remorseful bullet holes or murderous calculating grain-feed fear. Searching the garbage for another day of survival. Live off the guiltiness of the past, to stay drunk enough to not have a future. Wishing for the fragile privilege that grants me promotions, unseen riches for commonplace blessed Caucasians. Only if I’m lucky.

“What is it?” the man asks.

“Put your hand here,” she responds.

I fight against the pressure. Twisting. Kneeing. Punching. Encased in life, our racing heartbeats rhythmically accompany the panic. Will we both be good for each other? Should I be given away because singleness is more of a detriment than a show of strength? My hands float in front of me. Do they have the strength to fight? Will I need to defend my rights or be looked upon as an unbalanced knave?

The heat from your hands encourages me to be at peace in my incubated environment. I’m protected under your blanket of concern for my wellbeing. You display pragma as if you were meant to do this for a long time. Whatever pain I will cause you, you push on, believing and cultivating blind courage. Because what you feel is storge, something reminiscent from your own personal history. Nothing to do with me, but making every bit of it about me. My head is being pushed down. Space is limited. Growth.

“I have everything in the car.” the man said.

Your hands danced around. I want to fight back. Kick. Punch. Scream. But you’ve become the loud one. My elbows fight for space with my knees and your outbursts harden the walls that encase me. What happened to our shared Ludus? Loud laughter that would tickle me too. The push and pull, up and down. The constant go and chatter that filled our days. We haven’t moved like that in a while and now you choose to do so when gravity is playing a role. Your show of weakness is laughable, but I have the urge to cry.

“Your cervix is dilating nicely, it shouldn’t be long now,” the woman said.

This is really all about you. You are full of philautia. Conceited because copulation was natural in your sense. I didn’t ask to become your trophy, testimony of your fertility, a display of your vanity. To laud your advantage over others. Belittling them with that glow and quiet enjoyment.

You take centre stage, an effervescent blooming flower. Thorny at a moment's notice, jubilant within the hour. I can’t keep up. I need to rest. Lay my head against the hard pillow that quickly deflates within minutes of my slumber. You envy even my rest. The walls are closing in. The space tightens and softens, make up your mind, because I already know this is not what I want.

“Push, you’re doing great,” the woman said.

Now you tire of me. Your body chooses to expel me from my safety. Why would you do that? Why would you think I want to leave? Subject me to false promises and a calculated blatant corrosive reality? You see it and live within that truth, still, you force me out. An eviction. No first and last. What if I choose not to go? Stay. Ground myself here wrapped in the rope of life. The cold hard wrongs that you will commit the moment you expel me; will be numerous but well-needed lessons.

I will fight you for as long as I can; this will not be quick. It will not be pleasant. It will not be euphoria. It will not be what you expected. There is no way I want to become a statistic, a victim of my own circumstances. As much as you will look out for me and have made inroads in the name of change. I will be targeted. For having too much privilege, no privilege, limited access to privilege. I will be vilified. For not having any gray, forgetting the water murky, for claiming that the forbidden fruit started it all, for kneeling.

“Push,”

My heart picks up the pace. I can’t hear yours I’m too far away, but you must be worried. You must think that I’m already too much, this journey is too far gone. How can you consider agape is what I need at this very moment and what I can give. Your blind faith is devoted to my willingness to love immediately and at the highest level. I don’t know if I’m capable. Do you?

“Push, you can do it,”

What can that love do when I’m out.

“Stay strong, now push,”

Can it stop hate? The lie, that it is the yang to love. The fruit of years of introducing similarities as differences and truths as simple untruths that have been twisted within the falsehood of race relations.

“Push,”

Can it stop deceit?

“Just one more big push,”

Can it stop bullets? Not only the metal-encased powder can kill. But the sword of the tongue is a machine gun of venom that can put you six feet under. Ripping through you with ease as the premier pushes the projectile of hardened words into your soul. And you think it's best for me to leave the perfect protection to hide behind your walls of Jericho.

Push,”

“Sure, you can, you can do this,”

“Push,”

“It’s a…,”

It’s…it’s a possibility that can or could be endless.