Sometimes | a short story about a human woman

Sometimes, I exist so loudly. I can hear the vibrations under my skin, humming loudly. They are like kind little birds, chirping at me, reminding me, Hey! You’re here! You are on planet earth and this is where you belong! And I can’t help but agree: this is the only place I’d like to be.

Sometimes I am the protagonist in a beloved animated film.

My vibrations get louder, and I can feel them shaking inside of me. I escape the confines of my kitchen or my small, walled garden and I simply run away into a large, golden field. There, I throw my arms wide open and I twirl, craning my head towards the clouds, wishing I could propel myself into the sunset and end up anywhere else at all.

Sometimes, I disappear entirely.

My body begins to shake and my vibrations start to transform; they move in tandem and I cease to exist. If you could, please imagine a wide-eyed dreamer with a small paper heart safety pinned to a too-long sleeve, standing tall in the centre of a crisp, white cold room. The type of room, where whispers collide into walls and echo back in screams.

I am inverting; folding myself into smaller parts until eventually a puff of fuchsia smoke meets an onomatopoeic poof and that’s it. 

That’s me. 

Gone.

Sometimes, I retreat so far into myself that I can only imagine an alternate version of me, sitting comfortably on the sponges of my brain. There, my brain is a giant, sweet, pink strawberry that lives inside my marshmallow head.

I tread carefully over the surface, bare foot and cautious; I let my hands gently lift up the soft, velvety pink drupelets and peek at what lies underneath.

Sometimes, it’s rivers upon rivers of sweet, sticky, cool juice. I can run to the shores and drop to my knees, and get drunk on my memories until I am full up of sugar; a memory devoured in a single, long and satisfying gulp.

Sometimes, it’s a cavernous opening consisting of plain walls and in the very centre, endless colours of pencils, pens and paints, encouraging me to decorate the empty walls with my endless imagination.

These are my fantasies, and this is where I most often retreat. Beyond the sponges and beyond the warm folds of familiarity. I can see snippets of my reality, and instead of being thirsty, I am hungry. 

I take my paintbrush and I sweep boldly across walls with bright, shiny colours. Glittering sweeps of things I should have said, opportunities I shouldn’t have ignored and hearts I didn’t fall into. 

Sometimes, desire is a paintbrush.

Sometimes, I am my own muse.

When I’m done, I stand in the centre of my brain with my hands on my hips, satisfied. I know that, for now, I have done all I can. I can leave; re-emerge and start again.

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