Free and the smell of all things hardware as I wander aisles, my father’s voice barely in range. Laughter barrels up in me like a warm fire rising as I reach for white sponge wedges and colour fans. This is my outside: no wind, but wandering strangers, safe, familial. I wander through, reach out to touch and smell each thing, grasp at others’ thing-ness, lost in the memory.

 

Fear creeps up like ash curling through wisps of tangled viscera.

This tree grows long and tight around parts of me still there, stilled by its growth, thwarted. This tree takes life from those other parts of me that it embraces, digs its roots into organs like spider’s fingers.

 

Wound up and curled into the letter C, my body folds in on itself, doubles over as if to see its own imprint pressed firmly onto itself. Wormed up on a cold metal chair that says retard in white-out on the back while other kids pick crusts off peanut butter sandwiches and make unrecognizable noises that together form crowd, I seep out from the insides and the blinds close in on me like dream-state.

 

Choked smoke coughs out like interior design inside out. Black wraps itself around square frames. Corners lose safety, are no longer inside, turn in on themselves and push out with black insides. A shape forms, presents itself like a dock at dawn, calm, waiting.  

 

The room is lit dimly and there is the anticipation of going out—dad’s showered, mom’s putting on make-up, lights are on in bathrooms and closets. I am the babysitter coming over. I tuck my feet under rough-edged bedspread for non-comforting warmth as I dig into homework, reading, lists I’ve avoided, try to cling to their company. I flip through pages but keep coming back to the same one.

 

There is a possession happening.

Day clouds racing across the sky, why

stand alone in the woods?

Night rhythms rocking my veins, brains

succumbing to the thump.

 

Someone speaking with my mouth! making great jokes, babbling like a greyhound to a boy from Queens til he is undone, won

over by an odd charm.

 

The touch of a musician til I am gone,

lost to tactility, silly

with adoration, a nation

of children inside wanting to watch, touch, listen.

You.

 

Vase shatters into pieces on black-and-white ceramic tiles while toddler bounces away thoughtlessly. Mother is angry and words like black smoke pour out of her mouth onto the pieces lying open-faced on the patterned floor. The broken pieces together form a flower pulling itself out of the tiles, its fragrances as uncertain as glass.

 

Like lying. There’s this girl with a big enough smile to make a clown from one end of her face to the other. Her hair forms the letter j on both sides of her face. The rest is tucked away under streams of muscles, locks that hold moments in place.  

 

23:33:31

 

Cover-up spreads thick over sanitized face, hands and hair, covers sadness, whole and pure. Pains like pangs grip me in the gut on my way down each time. It’s like this madness; like a clenched grip on my insides. Spaces still open inside of me leave room for feeling; I fill them up with emptiness. This emptiness fills me.

 

 

I am spending a lot of time in this room. The walls are like frog vomit. The showers, pillow-like, distract me but I keep crying. Death is like the page this book keeps opening to on its own, half-turning with each hesitation.

 

Sitting in the cafeteria: it’s Friday lunch day and the milk box says Spout Bec. I’m not sure which is which but drink the milk and feel this weird stomach sucking in, feel my insides lined with thick milk. I don’t know what hunger is. I see backs of chairs and other kids eating their sandwiches and talking. I wonder if I’m hungry. It’s like this carsickness and I eat more to see if I’m less hungry. The bell rings and I turn spout bec towards me, take one last gulp. The milk sits in the centre of my stomach like chalk.

 

I’m punished to a room of Smurfs papered across walls almost as short as me, twin beds sit in an L shape on opposite sides. Still, each time, I go to ballerina jewelry box opened up and singing on my dresser by the wall. Gold and silver beads like string weave knots into each other like opposing figurines dancing separate, complementary moves.

 

Oh Candice, how you opened my eyes!

Such innocence and beauty, so blond and so bright!

And most of all was your smile, so trusting

And as brilliant as the sun itself.

At six years old how was I to know what I was feeling?

And then it seemed, in a moment, you were gone.

You and your family travelled to other adventures

And I linked my feelings to your departure.

Perhaps this was when my struggle truly began.

A struggle created by the forces of the universe

And my immature intellect.

So many years spent in fear of getting close,

Afraid to experience those feelings or any feelings once again.

So many years fearing my own sensitivity.

Running whenever I felt any sense of awe and love.

Running from me, my depth, my trust.

I begin the journey forward to trust in my own feelings

Trusting all that is and the Grand Design.

A re-connecting, a re-remembering.

I feel an urgency now and perhaps that is my biggest hurdle.

I am surrounded by the Candice of me. There is no escape.

And yet I have a knowing that no escape is necessary.

I breath in deeply and enjoy the moment one moment at a time.

 

 

Morning sounds and coffee smells line my lime room. Saturday morning: domestic voices like baby brother’s feet on ceramic tiles and my blanket ruffling on top of my chin. If I tuck myself under on my own, this is my experience of me, like whispering ‘me’ into a seashell.