Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

mess/chaos

Illustrated by CATHERINE BRAUN-GRENIER

i. healing (sing about me/dying of thirst)

promise that you will sing about me sang kendrick. i remember the first time we heard the song, together, sitting on your bedroom floor sorting out old CDs and eating strawberries. i still think of you. i can’t sing much but i still draw you, in my dreams and my scrapbooks. when i think of you i remember rainfall and beauty and the day my sister was born. i remember the day i had to leave it all and let the scars heal, the day i walked out of that hospital free and the burdens lifted from me. the pressure on my skull released. i was free. you remind me of that freedom. no more migraines, no more burns, no more bruises. the internal commotion gone and the scattered bits of my soul finally reunited under the same smile. i yearn for those days, for you, for the apples and peaches we used to pick at your grandmother’s, the boston cream donut that dripped on my jeans the morning we rode the bus to the library to start that paper on Hatshepsut i had to hand in the next day. i remember procrastination and being carefree, the beauty of the things you did to and for me, the smiles of those around us and the times i thought it was all too good to be true, but it wasn’t. not until you left or, rather, were taken from me. i still hate that bus driver, hate the wife that kept him awake, hate the kids who gave him the headache, hate that he fell asleep, hate sleep for it. i’ve been an insomniac ever since. i still smell you on the sheets sometimes. they think i'm insane; i can see it in their eyes. they say it's been three years but your presence is still here and sometimes the ache of knowing you are gone is too great. i still remember the daisies and sunflowers your niece gave us that morning, i still remember the cries of bystanders, hate their throats for yelling and wish their hands would've helped. its no use they tell me. there is nothing that could’ve been done they say. i wish i could've stitched you back together myself, you did the same for me. i would've given you all the life i had inside of me, all the life you’ve given me and we would’ve erased the memory of that bus crashing into your body as you stepped out of the car. i wish, i just wish i would wake up from this nightmare. institutionalized they say. there are white walls everywhere and i draw your face on every inch i will remember your smile and your face, ignore their pleas to let it go i will never let anything go. I will never let you go.

iv. noontime mysteries

some days skeletons from your past will wash up on shore. do not let the pain submerge you and take you with it. the things inside you are not burdens, you carry deep within vast oceans of life. your namesake is near. she smiles candidly, has been taught to look up to you. you do not know it yet, but you are the reason she will one day yield enough power to make patriarchs tremble. your soft words and thick books will light in her a fire. the daisies and sunflowers in her hands will be joined by books and pens and she will take over everything she touches. she will write your name in history. by then you will be old, the wrinkles around your eyes reminiscent of those your grandmother wore. but you will be proud, and her fire will light you up until the day you rest, daisies in your hands. but for now all she wants is that mango juice you’re drinking so you hand her the bottle, making sure her little four year old hands have a good grip on it.

ix. walk (last stand)

you haven’t been up this early in months. you haven’t cried when you opened your eyes. for the first time in weeks you might actually be able to move this mass that is your body to the grocery store and not break down as you try pulling your pants over your thighs. you try looking away as you do so however, afraid the sight of the stretch marks will break yet another thing inside you. you ponder, for a half second, whether you should bother with coffee but tell yourself you have no energy to spare; you need to buy food before your soul starts feeling that familiar drain and slide itself into the depths of nowhere. before you step out you pray to God you don’t come across any faces that you know; those who once called themselves friends have slid out of your life when you needed their presence the most. you were too much for them, you could see it their eyes. they could not bear seeing you cry yourself to death and were too afraid or didn’t love you enough to bear the pain with you. regardless. they continued living on with their happy lives, occasionally texting, more so to check if you still had a pulse left in you than anything. they don’t say it but you know. you hear it in the long pauses between the how are yous and what have you been up to latelys.