I was overwhelmed by a
frenzy of anxious self-destruction and a
fit of the walls closing.
I’d like to say that this night was an anomaly,
that it is memorable because it was
uncommon.
But the truth is that
these nights crept up on me
suddenly and
frequently.
Nights where my hands
shake with unease and
my nails grip my triceps and
hold on tight as if I might
forget myself,
lose myself in
mental distress.
My chest was taught and my legs were itching.
Too much thought.
Too much head.
I needed movement.
Mist and fog blinding September,
a world damp with the memory of a melted sky,
I went to the Esplanade,
downtown Boston propelling me
away.
I was all body on the Charles River.
All frigid limbs and
numb lips and
back of my head against wet wood.
On the dock, a plane caught my eye;
I sprawled out,
tracking it,
head straight and unmoving,
rigid-necked,
hoping my pupils would roll back into my head,
detect whatever disaster was taking place and
determine how to clean it up.
Along the path of the esplanade,
a tree grows tall and
thick and
bends itself to the pleasure of those who pass.
I curled my body into the wood of it and
watched as my limbs
turned barky and damp to match.
I could have slept there,
nestled between nicks in the oak.
But immobility is not my strong suit.
I disappeared again into the dark of midnight.
Two miles behind me
wasn’t enough time
or enough different,
and the same wasn’t enough anymore.
I wandered the same streets over and over,
thinking I was getting somewhere new.
Tried not to find metaphor in that.
My soul mate said once
that I spend my entire life
running away
from the feeling of being trapped.
My teeth fell down my throat.
She revealed me,
unearthed a truth I hadn’t recognized.
A deep-seated,
don’t-acknowledge-it,
perception-changing
kind of truth.
I walked because I was afraid
of getting stuck where I was,
here,
afraid of getting stuck somewhere I hated.
I walked because,
here,
I never wanted to be.
I walked because
as long as I was moving,
I wasn’t really here.
Still here—
in this city that doesn’t know me,
that is crooked and wrong,
that holds me hostage.
The magical thing
about walking with your struggle:
it works.
Three hours,
6.4 miles,
because I could feel myself slowly suffocating.
I saw the river move,
and I moved,
was moved with it.
I cried at the saddest song
I’d ever heard and
nobody knew,
the dark and
the mist and
the emptiness
carrying my drama for me,
shielding me.
I got excited about things—
slow shutter speeds and
the way my writing changes depending on what I’m reading
(how amazing it is that things change so easily)
and corporeality,
and mercury and the moon.
I found solace in
roaming under frigid skies—
a cure for bitter misery.
I sang to myself,
for myself,
stepped through leaves and
ducked under branches and
touched spider webs and
earth.
Moving is not a running from, it is a meditation on being with.
About the Creator
Amelia Clare Wright
Amelia is a recent graduate from Emerson College majoring in Communications Studies. She finds passion in language, photography, and learning, and hopes to pursue a life full of all three.
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