by Georgia May

It’s alright, ma. The curtains are closing now. The birdsong has replaced the DJ and I’m not holding a form asking to tick off the places where it’s hurting. I’ll be coming home soon, ma, don’t listen to what that doctor said. You’re just my emergency contact, but they ring the blue light for anything these days. I swear—I’m not playing footloose with the truth, not anymore. It’s just…I wish I knew too soon that there was no sense in trying. I wish to be free of dreams, of desire, of the possibility of more. I wish to be free of myself (don’t we all?) and by God, it was heaven for a while, up on that stage, assuming the next part could only be bigger and the audience only louder. The future stretching out like a long, satisfying yawn of what’s next, what’s next, what’s next….

I borrowed from the present to invest in the future, and now I’ve lost out on both, my daily life emptied of time, friends, lovers, holidays, bonuses. Hobbies that don’t demand reward. Of a body that obeys. He’s saying there’s something wrong with my insides, ma, but it’s alright, I can make it.

Remember how, as a kid, I lived on pinball machines and two-cent soda fountains? Then on lucky streaks, freebies, and being the understudy. I was awaiting revelation as if I didn’t already know this whole time what it means to lose. Girls already know that feeling, but boys don’t find it until they’re not boys anymore. Until they’re ball-dropped and doped and cocky-eyed, realizing too late that the world doesn’t owe them a thing. It was almost nice to lose everything at first—to stop pushing the boulder up the hill. Float in the sky and dispossess higher everyday (I promise, that was the only thing I was high on, ma). But to be free in one way is to salute a different kind of prison. One victory and loss at a time, like a balancing plate of spinning dreams that never get to be more than dreams. I had a habit of smooth-talking, nail-biting and missing my train, but now I’m coming back to the meadows and morning bakery, ma. City traffic has become my melody, but not one I want to dance to anymore. I only hope I can take something gentler now.

I can hear my younger self knocking on doors and running away, his bare feet squeaking the laminated flooring, and I wish to go running down hallways with him, to still answer dragonslayer when asked what I want to be when I grow up (do you remember that?) Oh, to run again. I told my body I would rest in it later, stop poisoning it later, run it out of the ground later. Now it’s picking a fight it knows it can win; bided its time until I needed it most, then shut down all together. Attacking myself the way I was attacking myself, for getting in the way of early morning grinds and fitting into one-size backstage wardrobes.

Their standing ovation was a mean trick—an empty promise. My life a near-hit and triple the effort of a miss. I don’t know how they do it, ma, except on chance or daddy’s money. But it’s alright, don’t listen to what the doctor said, don’t let that blue light blind your eyes. I’ll be home soon, back to birdsong and laminated flooring. I don’t have dreams anymore, ma, or a body that works, but maybe if I can bear it, I’ll recite you some poetry the way I used to do. Easy enough from a bed, with just you and no applause. Do you think they have a group for that? AA, applause addiction. Well, it’s alright, I couldn’t make it to the church hall anyhow. You can bring me tea and heal me, well, soothe me, until I’m gone, the way you used to when I was a kid, when I was too sick to run on laminated flooring. Perhaps it’s a state I’ve always known, perhaps I was always destined to be here. No running or applause, just a bed, and you and me and tea and poetry. It’s alright ma, I don’t mind anymore. I can make it.

Image by Laura Stanley via Pexels