Periwinkle

Hello! This story doesn’t really have any sensitive content, but it’s kinda depressing and written in a very jarring style that I feel like I have to explain for some reason. 

“Name” is because in my memories, I often feel like I’m watching someone else, so I don’t associate myself with these events.A slash means the memory is changing. These are my own memories, and so many are spliced together awkwardly, best through time or trauma or just me being forgetful. So if I write a line like “I know/I hope/I know she’s coming back” that means I’m trying to wear multiple memories together to grasp the clearest outcome. Stuff in italics is stuff I added in later as the memories changed. Dashes mean I’m splicing two memories together. Sorry if this is awkward, it’s as weird for me as it is for you. I now present, my untarnished, painful childhood memories. (Oh yeah one’s at a funeral so it’s kinda depressing just gonna put that out there. And another one features my dad being a jerk about queer people, though he didn’t say anything that bad, he was kind of sort of trashing them and has been doing it for a while. So it’s kind of everywhere in my mind. So it made it’s way into a memory. Sorry! Okay, now enjoy!) 

“Mom, why is/periwinkle/where is/that girl singing?”

“She’s singing/the periwinkle is singing/singing to the periwinkles/poor child, you really hear that? It’s only the waves.”

It’s high and haunting. The sand/sea moves fluidly, waves crashing in and out like my heartbeat. I rest on Mom’s chest, feeling her voice vibrate through her bones.

“She’s singing to the periwinkle/singing/singing.”

It’s like someone blowing into a flute, a high, haunting song. By the rocks, I see her/there is no one at all. Blond/ponytail, round face, seen from behind on the rocks, she holds it up to the light/round faced, there is nothing in her hands. Singing, singing, singing. I see her holding it/periwinkle, periwinkle, poor, poor child/purple in the sunlight, glistening. It falls from her finger, singing, singing, singing/but did it really happen?

There is a burnt page of book floating in the water. There is another family, the kind Mom cringes at, for wearing bikinis and the mom having a tattoo as well as a toddler. One or the other, she says. She calls them garbage people behind their back. It’s not their fault, and their kids are good at looking for shells. It’s cloudy/everything is copper-colored. 

There is a burnt page of book in the water/Dad frowns at it— some fool ruining his literacy, in his mind. I gather shells/copper, copper, copper/the sky like smoke/the burnt page floating, floating. I find a shell that’s many shells stacked on top of each other. Dad says “you can’t keep that. They’re still alive. You wouldn’t want them to die, would you?” The burnt page floats away. The secretly shamed family walks away. 

“You don’t want to be like them, do you, name/go on, put it back.”

They don’t understand how long it will take for me to think clearly for myself. For me to stop thinking like them, to understand that people come in all forms, and that tattoos don’t make you a bad person. They scoff and turn away from “madmen” mumbling to themselves. They tell me to never interact with someone mentally ill. They broke their own rule so many times. Do they even know their daughter? Or were they surprised when I told them what was wrong with me? Maybe that explains why they only try to fix me. Pray it away, meditate it away, medicate it away. 

“Mom,/what is/how does/kill—”

She turns around instantly, in our cold car/I can feel her frown though she does not move. 

“We don’t say that word in this household.” Her voice is like ice. We drive away/I look out past the soft leather headrest, leaning to se what’s in the trunk of the car.

“Turn around.”

Can’t even say words my mom doesn’t like. Can’t even speak my mind. Might as well just shove it down there. Keep it to myself. 

I was malleable back then, able to be bent into the mold my mother wanted me in. And so I assumed I could not say kill. But as time went on, I drifted from her. And all the old memories began to unfold. See me at eleven years old? They couldn’t control me anymore. I started to think for myself. 

She’s pretty. I’ve known her since I was very little. We went to the library together— “come on, it’s okay, just read it to me!” I was very shy when it came to reading out loud, but she helped me with it. We hid under the table in the kid’s section as I read a book about fairies— I hadn’t seen her in a while. We went to karate together. She was smaller than me, but stronger. She walked across the mat, hair swinging behind her. 

“Alright! Let’s/Great job!” She calls to the younger classes.

I feel something weird inside me.

I know it is possible to like girls, but my dad is mean to people like that. He’s already the polar opposite of me. I have to stop thinking like that. Plus, I like that boy. I don’t want my dad to call me gay. He’s mean sometimes. 

I push the memory away. I didn’t find it until a few weeks ago. Everything made sense. I held so much back so the people I loved wouldn’t be upset.

“Do you like me?”

I lie in my room. 

I do.

I can’t say yes, though. Mom will hear. She’ll tell me I’m too young. Besides, do I really like him? Or do I like the idea of him? Why didn’t he say he liked me first? Is it because he’s waiting for me to say I like him? Is it because I’m waiting for him to say it? Maybe I don’t!

The phone is warm against my ear.”Do you like me?”

“You’re a good swimmer/you’re a better swimmer than me.”

Every now and then, I forget why I’m forgetting things. Usually because of the pain. Like now.

“Name?”

“You’re gonna be alright—NAME!” 

It’s an out of body feeling/I’ve been watching the movie for too long, the girl is hurt/I’m hurt my toe is hurt/Can’t breathe, wha’s happening to me. What happened to me? Am I okay?/I’m here, the sand/the sea/poor, broken child, can’t even take a bit of pain. What’s wrong with you? You’re scaring them/scaring them You cut your foot. Look at you now. Don’t even know your own name—

I’m so cold. I’m so cold, but I have to pretend I’m not. It’s like my ghost has left my body. Stop. Stop comparing me to my grandmother. But even so, Mom always taunts me about how her mother was an abusive hoarder. Tells me to never be that way. I threw out so much so she’d love me, hid so much so she’d care. But here she is. I know how she cried when she learned what had happened. It’s stupid, anyway. But even the people you don’t like, you can’t let go of them. That’a why I wore her earrings and necklace to the funeral. So Mom would be happy. 

But maybe it just makes her see the forgetful, snooping hoarder she hated so. 

We all know she sees her mother in me.

It’s gray. I only brought one notebook, tiny enough to fit in the pocket of my dress. To pretend I’m not the kind of person who would have an anxiety attack at any moment, without the weight of her words.

“Goodbye, Mom.”/Mom stays silent. 

Maybe the old me is dead. 

Oh, it all got blurry about here. Even though this only happened last summer. You don’t remember so much of what happened when you were a young teen. I don’t remember what happened. But this was only a short while ago, before things blurred. Let’s jump to something more fun. Half-fake, almost. But happy. Happy enough. 

I am onstage. 

I have the microphone.

This is where I belong.

“And I got ‘y’all knuckleheads in loco parentis…”

But what’s the cost?

I see them, staring at me. In the first row. Watching me act in a musical they hate, playing a character they don’t even know. They think it’s just a trend. They don’t know why I like it— skinny, bony white girl playing a black male role. Look at what I was. I’ll never find my place. Not now, not ever. No one’s gonna want me onstage. Say farewell to my dreams for me—

Mom smiles brightly, anyway. I’m glad they cut the swearing to keep it “kid friendly,” as my brother knows enough swears already, but so what if I wanted to play Hercules Mulligan? I can rap I can dance, why not combine the two? I’m making something happen here. I memorized a musical, give me credit. 

Oh, darling, it gets worse. It gets so much worse. But it’s not like I have real problems.

I suppose everyone has that moment. That moment where they realize it’s led up to this. But no, in this moment, all I can think of is Catra. From that awesome cartoon I like, the one with the princesses. The red lights they use backstage reflect off her glasses, and that’s all I can think. Catra with glasses. 

“I talked to Jaqui.”

That’s it. No more Catra with glasses. Just a girl who could totally wish my dreams.

It’s fine. The show must go one.

“She talked to me, too. Like, an actual conversation/she’s so cold to everyone/she talked to me.”

Catra with glasses is back.

“I talked to a crush, too,” I say.

Five minutes till curtain. We’re just on props for a younger production, but still. 

She smiles.

I leave my shell. I’ve been doing it for a while, but I pull from the mold. I’m not their perfect daughter. I’m an absolute disaster. And so what if I like rapping and glasses Catra and quit martial arts and write gibberish poetry— 

“That’s not real poetry. Poems have meaning. This is just nonsense/it doesn’t make sense.”

I know. I know, I know, I know—

I put it into words. I’m finally putting it into words. 

I’m an absolute disaster. 

I like periwinkles and tattoos and rapping and Glasses Catra. I’m queer and Christian at the same time.

I am a beautiful disaster.

But I have to pull back into my shell.

“Why does it always autocorrect to ‘glasses cart?’ ” 

She looks at me. Back into the shell. Can she read the words on my screen?

Sorry, Mom.

This fractured girl is nothing like the one you knew. 

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Thank you, them?’ I sound retarded!”

“Ugh. Neck tattoo. Garbage person.”

“See that homeless woman? You’d better not end up like her.”

“You need to go to the mental hospital, name?”

“You said one of the symptoms was being suicidal and joked about it. Something wrong with you?”

“You’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.”

“Oh. I don’t like that musical.”

“People die in this story?”

Shut up. 

Let me be who I want to be.

Let me breathe again.