She Lives

It was a hot, sticky day, I was playing outside in my favorite pink and white striped bathing suit. My dad was washing his beige 1996 Mercedes which was as sturdy as an army tank.  He had all his supplies out: his waxing kit, a mountain of microfiber washcloths, sprays for tires, and of course the hose to actually wash the car. I was lost in my own world of imagination--a concept that had been introduced to me and fostered through my love for books and stories. I was a baker, gathering supplies for my mud bakery. I needed precisely two red buckets of dirt. They had to be transported to my bakery underneath the deck. Given the extraordinary baker that I was, I only used the highest quality dirt that came straight from my mom’s garden and completely messed up our landscaping. But to me, ingredients were more important than aesthetically appealing yards. I had many customers on their way. They were going to want my famous mud-berry pie which requires water for the right muddy consistency. So, I went to collect my water from the hose. My dad, however, had other plans in mind. 

He sprayed me with the water hose. 

I laughed. Oh no, I’m going to be all wet for my customers. My dad was always doing silly things like that. I looked at my dad and my smile quickly melted into a face of confusion. Why was my dad looking at me like that? His face was twisted and his eyes were as wide as an owl’s. I wanted to say it’s okay Daddy, I don’t mind being sprayed with the water. But he kept staring at me with this fearful look and he wouldn’t move. Brenda, he yelled and the next thing I knew my mom was yelling and quickly wrapping me in a towel, and carrying me inside. 

* * *

My whole life I have been filled with a deep love of language. When I was younger I didn't fully understand this Ancient Spirit, connecting me to a wider human consciousness. At times, I even tried to suppress this voice that was inside me, drawing me towards stories, towards books, towards understanding the world around me. Yet, despite my wavering loyalty, she stayed loyal to me. She was always there to welcome me back into her warm embrace, when I was lost she gave me a home, she fed me, mended my broken bones--in her I finally was able to see myself. She came to me when I was a baby, before then perhaps, I don’t know I can’t remember a moment of my life without her. We met through my mother, she brought in this thing at the time I couldn’t quite comprehend what it was but it was big and shiny and when she opened it bright, vibrant colors danced off the pages. I was so taken back by this beauty that I didn’t want to do much else besides look at it, touch it, turn the page just to turn it back and stare at the picture longer. I wanted to experience it for myself. Still, when I thought this thing couldn’t get any more interesting my mother started to make voices and look animated. I didn’t understand what she was saying but I wanted to. It seemed magical and  from that moment on I became an addict. 

I began to recognize and want to be in Her presence when I was around three years old. I remember being read an array of stories, nightly by my mother.  Some were interactive like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I would stick my small chubby fingers in cut out holes in the oranges, pears and strawberries, turning the pages with just my pointer finger. Others were sad like Where The Wild Things Are; some were funny like Click Clack Moo Cows Type That. The sound of my mother’s voice filling up my room-- She would be loud, then soft, dramatic, sarcastic, silly--talk high and low, giving each character a distinctive voice.  Yet it wasn’t just my mother’s voice. As she spoke I heard traces of her dancing around in my mother’s voice, causing language and words, jumped off the page, they floated around my room and above my head and turned into the most magical scenes. She transformed into pure joy inside me. Language had turned into possibility, into creation. She helped tuck me in at night, gave me kisses on my closed eyelids and promises no bad dreams would come to me. 

I grew up enamored. Our relationship was special, it was family oriented which meant the world to me as a young girl and due to this language has always meant family to me. I view language as a part of my chosen family. Our relationship is a familial one on both a personal and global scale. She is like a sage mentor to me, always calling me to action. She is like a mother and a sister always providing me with warmth and love. She is a confidant, a friend to laugh and cry with. Together we create a community of readers, writers, dreamers, of people, of those who have been othered and I wish to share Her with the world. I want them to feel the love and empowerment that She has brought me. I want to introduce Her to my future children, to have Her by my side as I sit in a rocking chair with my child resting on my breast. Both of us smiling knowing that we can bring my child years of endless joy and happiness--a lifetime of memories to cherish. Likewise, She and my mom introduced me to the concept of story or imagination who became another intimate friend of mine. She opened doors to worlds that I didn’t know existed and together we swam to the bottom of the ocean, traveled to tops of mountains, to the Renaissance, to the wetlands, the possibilities were endless. Even once the book was closed these doors remained opened as I learned how to create my own stories in my mind, my friend imagination and I we would galavant off flying through the sky as superheroes, battle scondlers in our knights armor, transform into a princess, a mermaid we get lost in our stories for hours the two of use. Sometimes characters from the books I read would even join us on our adventures, they would step out of their hardback skin and a world of unknowns with only me as their guide. I look back now, and see that my love of storytelling, of composing, of authoring was being planted inside my soul during these heroic adventures, yet that was something that I wouldn’t discover until my relationship with words had matured. 

I was less than five years old before I had my first biopsy. I would say the word over and over: biopsy. It was a strange word. It didn’t make sense in my mind. I was told I’d be asleep and the doctor would just take a sample of the nodule. Not that I understood what any of that meant. They were speaking a language that was foriegn to me at the time which was scary because before that I always took comfort in language. It was the only way I knew how to understand the world. Whatever I didn’t understand, whether it was why the sky was blue instead of silver or why I wasn’t supposed to watch SpongeBob Square pants had always been explained to me through words and I had no trouble interpreting their meaning. I relied on language and books for answers as to when my prince would come, as to how to pray to Jesus at night, even how to make brownies. It had always been my interpreter, my teacher, an arrow guiding me down my path. But this, this was the first time language failed me, leaving me alone and scared. What was I supposed to do with these forgein words? I was lost and confused--speechless. 

 I was given the book Madeline a story about twelve little girls who walked in two straight lines and of which the smallest one was Madeline. Madeline was just like me, a small redhead girl. In the story, Madeline got her appendix removed and was left with a small scar on her belly. This was the first story that I had read in which another young girl had undergone some sort of procedure and had a scar. It became more of a story to me. In my world, I was the only girl who was ‘sick’ but whenever I opened that book, I was no longer alone. I had a sister, a friend who had the same story as me. Words and stories remained faithful to me and language had once again proven to be my friend.  I would read the story over and over and I even ordered my own Madeline doll and whenever I would undress her I would run my finger across the stitched scar on her stomach and think about the glistening white scar on my left leg. 

Our relationship progressed even further as I got older and  learned how to read and write independently. These newfound skills propelled our relationship to a level that I never knew was possible to achieve. Not being dependent on my mother or teachers to read aloud to me, our intimacy grew immensely. I found that She was with me all the time on billboards, in magazines, on menus, online, and of course in books. I could create my own discourse in my journals, my WebKinz and I’d  have meetings that my American Girl dolls weren’t allowed to join. Suddenly, every drawing, every doodle had a complex meaning or story. She gave me this power of creativity. She empowered me to embrace individuality.    She constantly followed me and now I could take her with me whenever I wished. Simply, tuck a small book into my bag and whenever I wanted I could retreat into a new place just the two of us. I’d become fully absorbed in words, in the story, in the world, in the characters, I began to place myself in the book. I could be in a room of one-hundred people but to me it felt as if we were the only two people in the room--She had that power to actually melt away my surroundings. At times my mother would have to physically pull on my arm in order to get me to stop paying attention to her and rejoin the world. Language was becoming a lifeline to me, like an asthmatic with their inhaler I carried it around with me all the time just for the safety and security of its presence in my pocket. 

As I continued to learn how to read and write independently, it became harder to deny my love for the Spirit of language. She dwelt deep within me. I devoured novel after novel. From Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark to Eloise like a glutton I simply could not consume enough words. At times, these books were my only friends. When I was with words, I felt seen. They took away the pain of Ethan calling me Barney because I, now, turned purple when I got cold, and I didn’t have to try and fit in with the rest of my girl friends. She had unchained me restraints that I was too young and naive to see were even there. In a way she was my liberator. The written word became everything to me: mother, friend, lover, comforter, confidant, savoir, mirror, escape, encourager, mentor, and teacher. She molded to fit my every need, she transcended every situation never leaving me alone. 

Books even taught me what to expect traveling alongside with each age landmark. I remember when I left my elementary school and went to Harpeth Hall for middle school. It was an intimidating transition. I distinctly remember seeing the library on Harpeth Hall’s campus for the first time. It was so imposing it, it was almost impossible not to look at. Before I had even entered the doors, I was already stunned. The outside of the building had four large round, white columns that reminded me of the columns at the front of my house and the top of the building was this massive dome which looked like the top of a planetarium. When I opened the doors I was met with a rush of cold air and a long hallway with shiny black marble floors. Once I entered the library, there was a giant circulation table that was an actual circle which imitated the circular sunroof above it. Sun streamed in, illuminating the entire area making it look almost otherworldly. If you looked to the right there was a giant stone fireplace surrounded by large armchairs that were so inviting one could take a nap on them. Not to even mention, the books. This new school was much more grandiose than my elementary school. The library began to represent freedom and safety for me. Whenever I was stressed at school or if I was being bullied or if I was scared about my medical circumstances—I’d go to the library and sit in those chairs with a book. I was in a fortress of language and nothing could touch me here. 

I was thirteen. It started out as a typical visit to my rheumatologist, he was nearing retirement age and had told my parents that he thought it might be a good idea that I start getting monthly IV infusion of gamma globulin as my B cells seemed to be trending downward in my bloodwork and my CRP was quite high, indicated some unknown inflammation. We thought that sounded dramatic, I was just entering puberty and I was growing so we needed to simply increase my current medication, but it stopped working. I started to fall ill constantly. I began missing school due to horrific sinus infections. I’d get bronchitis, phenmonu, the flu as easily as the common cold. I even managed to get bronchitis, phenomena, an ear infection, and influenza A and B all at one time while my parents were out of town. I remember when they got home, they brought me a lei back from Hawaii and I could barely muster the strength to sit up enough for them to slip it over my head. I developed debilitating migraines, or we called them migraines but we were really sure what they were. When I had these migraines, I couldn’t be in a lit room, my speech would slur. My vision began to blur, the room would tilt up and down like I was on a seesaw. I saw little black spots that weren’t there and the room would begin to spin around me as if I was doing a series of pirouettes. I felt like I was in a boat and I became incredibly nauseous. I began to lose time I would do and say things that I didn’t remember, that would scare my friends and family.  I couldn’t concentrate on anything, reading hurt caused my head to become foggy, TV stung my eyes made me feel like a vampire dying in the sunlight, and my imagination seemed to abandon me. I felt comatose and sleep became my only solace. 

We started to read Romeo and Juliet in the Eight grade, I’ve always identified as a romantic partly due to all the fairytales I grew up reading where love ultimately triumphs in the end. As we were reading the play, my world didn’t make sense. I began to feel disconnected from the joyous world of a thirteen-year old girl. My joints were so sore at times I couldn’t walk, none of the doctors seemed to know what was going on with me. My blood counts were dropping to dangerous levels. I heard whispers from my friends which fostered feelings of isolation and rumors of possibly being admitted to the hospital. They gave me concerned smiles, looked at me with bulging, curious eyes and hugged me so limply as if they feared I would snap in two. I was excited to read this mythical play. It gave me hope. It promised me an escape to a place where enchantment and faith reigned supreme. Then I started to read the play and the words on the page didn’t make sense. They seemed to be in some other forigen language that was impossible for me to decode. I couldn’t translate the story and in the end love, family, hope didn't win. They both died. Darkness won. Death won. Sadness won. Was that what was going to happen to me?  Was love or life not going to triumph? Would this sickness win? Would this sadness win? I began performing poorly in English class, I no longer saw the point and whenever I tried to write a structured, academic essay. It seemed so lifeless to me.  I’d put all my effort into it and it was never enough. I was uninspired, lonely, and sad. My one solace words, books, and language weren’t even serving as a comfort to me. They were seemingly failing me, but really they were illuminating a deep fear that existed inside of me: the world isn’t a perfect happy place. Life isn’t a fairytale and people suffer and die.  These words don’t immediately bring me comfort but they were acting as a mirror forcing me to face the pains of the real world. That love doesn’t always win. That there is loss and pain in this world. A pain that I felt, and none of my friends around me could sympathize with. I took solace in this eventually. Knowing that even if no one understood me, this Ancient Spirit of langue did. She normalized my experience and accepted it. She was showing me that I was not alone, for She never abandoned me. Rather she opened a door for me to realize that my pain is valid. She helped usher me into dealing with these adult emotions that would ultimately help mature me into the person I am today. I now know that language is raw, it is real, it is living--just like me. 

I began to feel lost and silenced. I had nothing to turn to, no one to turn to, so I began to turn to writing for the first time to express feelings that were too overwhelming and complex for a child my age to feel and process. Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to the page. In the darkness of night, I’d confess my soul to the empty page, I’d unzip my lips and let words fall unto the page like rain. I remember wanting to feel ownership over my words. I reclaim parts of my body. They were so interconnected because I created them every time I opened my mouth or grabbed a pencil.  It was the one part of my body that I felt as if I still had control over. Through a bunch of scribed marks on a page, I was able to speak, think, and hear. I was able to see myself and I was also able to see others. I became  greedy and sometimes I still am. 

On November 10th 2010, just fourteen years old, I wrote on my Facebook Page “I see my friends in a room. A room full of faces all in one room. I stand outside the room crying. A smile. I see it and it lifts me up. There are dozens of smiles in the room, smiles for me to see, to make me happy. I want to be there. I want to be a part. I don’t want them to smile at me. I want to be alright, to be okay to not face it alone. None understands me. No one but me--I see someone crying and smiling, I look and it is me”.  This post got no likes or comments. I remember at the time that I wrote it, I was scared. Inside I was screaming and crying like a small child. I wanted to break things, I wanted to yell at people. Throw myself on the floor and have a tantrum like a small child. I wanted someone to notice me, but no one seemed to. I felt an emptiness inside of me that was eating away at my soul and all I knew to do was to write. I was writing to survive. I was writing to breathe. I had to take my pen and wield it as a sword and use it to combat this tar-like monster that was feeding on me. I was afraid to let the world know how I was feeling, yet at the same time I was frantic to make them understand, which is why I turned to this semi-public sphere just praying that someone would pause and listen. Scared, I wondered if they would even understand?  I was desperate, lonely, in need of a friend, yet too young and naive to ask for help or even know that I needed it. Using language was my only means of making others see me, of making them hear me, of making them feel what I was feeling. Writing was my only way of speaking because whenever you looked at me, I had a smile plastered on my face and when you asked me how I was doing I said ‘I’m fine! Great actually!’. The words that came out of my mouth were the words of the tar-monster, he’d chained me up and gagged  so that every time I tried to open my mouth no sound escaped. I was in a chasm screaming silently to get out. I just wanted to voice to be heard, for my words to be noticed, for my pain to be recognized. It wasn’t not for a very long time.

Throughout High School, I often traveled the country to visit different doctors in an attempt to figure out what was wrong with me. A consequence of this was that I ended up missing weeks, even months of school. I was trapped in a traditional school schedule and system that didn’t really work well for me. However, I was beyond lucky to attend a school that was beyond willing to work alongside me--they truly would do anything in their power to help me succeed. They gave me special permission to leave class if I wasn’t feeling well, I was allowed not to participate in extracurriculars such as P.E. or any other strictly non-academic class.  I eventually got out of science and calculus once I had completed my required STEM credits, so I had a lot of freetime.  So I spent most of my High School career in the library. It was one of the only places I could go besides sitting in the hallways or a ‘pod’ for our designated grade. Everytime I spent time in the hallways I felt vulnerable and awkward, too exposed like the ugly duckling on the fringe who stood out amongst all the swans. To remedy this I went to the library, a place where since I had begun my career at Harpeth Hall I had felt safe and free. I technically knew that the building wasn’t mine, but it felt like mine. I didn’t have authority or ownership over my own body. Doctors telling me to take off my clothes so they could examine me like some humanless species, taking my blood whenever they needed, taking pictures of my legs, being forced to urinate in cups and then walk around with my ‘sample’ to give to someone. Doctors have seen every part of my body, both inside and out, they know my body as intimately if not more intimately than I do. Her liver is 15cm long, CRP 37, last period was on May 6th--nothing was hidden from them. So, feeling ownership over the library meant everything to me. It empowered me. This was one aspect of my life that couldn’t be picked apart to examine. Wasn’t invaded or questioned. It was separate from my parents' worried and hovering faces. In it I could simply breathe. The building, the books revived me and helped keep me alive. Inside those walls I wasn’t ‘Sharon Chambers patient 4A09CV7l’ but I was just Allie Chambers. A regular girl with a deep love for books, stories, and language. I was a semi-shy girl with fiery red hair who had normal problems like, who should I take to the Winter Formal. English was my favorite subject, I was interested in learning about the world around me and I hated math even though I was actually very good at it. I love dancing and music and magic. I believe in romance and love and that life-like stories can have a happily ever after. I was silly, sarcastic, funny, light-hearted, and happy. I spent hours talking with the librarians finding out what books were going to be the next big young adult hit and I would walk up and down the aisles kneeling down observing the glossy spins. I didn’t have to open them, just being in their presence brought me comfort. Each one was an imagined reality that I could take on and wear like a jacket. Stories of triumph, stories of sadness, of loss, of failure, of victory, of fantasy, of romance, of darkness, of heroes--of the complexity of the world and of the human experience. The possibilities were just endless and it made me feel normal. My story seemed at the time, to be very written out. I was the “sick girl” everyone gave me their pity, their sympathy, they cast me off to the side as this other that they didn’t understand and tainted their normalcy. But the books weren’t biased, they didn’t see me as a sick girl, to them I was simply a reader. They welcomed me into their pages and simply allowed me to be. Language was my great equalizer. It saw me flaws, illness, joys, tears, laughter. Language both realized and made me human. It connected me to that greater human consciousness that gave me the strength to carry on at times. These weren’t just books and stories and words to me. Tucked into each novel, inside each reader, living in every author was the Spirit and it was what connected us as humans. 

Since I was practically part of the library staff, occasionally they’d let me take a book that hadn’t been put into the library system on a trip with me or make sure that I’d get it before anyone else. I was about to go visit the Mayo Clinic for a very significant visit, I would be undergoing several procedures and I was going to be conscious of one of them. This was around the same time that the new Divergent series was released, all of the girls in my school wanted to read it. We only had a handful of copies but Mrs. Bernet made sure that one of those copies would be mine. When you walk into the pediatrics clinic at Mayo, it’s almost like you are being transported to another world. There is an array of large stained glass panels overlapping one another with different woodland animals painted on them. There is a large puzzle wall, books are scattered around the floor, there are a couple TVs playing child-friendly shows and in the center of all of this there is a giant oak tree that has been sculpted as its crowning jewel. They keep the lighting fairly low in the waiting room so that all the lighting will truly shine through the sheer glass and create this under the sea, fairytale kind of feel as opposing colors dance off the walls. I was sitting on one of the green couches, my dad was near me going through all my medical history, writing notes, emailing doctors on his blackberry--making sure that everything was up to his standards and that everyone would know he’s a doctor and he’s really the one in charge. I was scared. I had never had a procedure like this before. I was going to be awake during it. I was reading Divergent and I remember channeling the main character Tris. In this scary dystopian world, this small, shy girl embraced her challenges and became one badass who could kick butt and stood up for what was right. I remember wishing that I could box, or do some form of martial arts in that moment. It would make me feel invincible. I could fight away my fear. Throw it into a ring and just hit it in the face and then I could just walk into that OR completely unphased, because nothing scared me. I wasn’t Tris and I was still scared but her story stuck with me during that trip and her courageousness made me feel that I could face what was being thrown at me. I’d simply step into Tris’s world, I’d take on her persona and maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

I had the same English teacher my last two years in High School. Her classroom became my fortress. Every class, I would sit right next to her and help lead the class to a degree, or at least that’s how it felt and what my friends jokingly said. This class was the one place where I belonged, where I felt respected, where I excelled. Mrs. Meltesen saw this in me. She saw my passion, she knew my capabilities and because of that she never gave me an A on a paper. This infuriated me, because my friends would get A’s and in my opinion they didn’t care as much as I did or try as hard as I did. She pulled me aside once and told me with one of my papers in her hand. She gave it to me, another B+ hovering at the top and told me this is not your best, you are capable of so much more. You’re not trying your hardest. You’re talented so you can just get by, but when you do try it’ll be amazing. Honestly, I was both flattered and angered at the same time. I perceived that I was putting effort into these papers, and at the same time I was flabbergasted because this was the first time someone had believed in me for something other than rising above my illness. She peeled back my insides and saw something inside of me, inside of my soul. She detected a flame and was determined to help set it ablaze. She started pushing me harder than anyone in the rest of the class and even told me to take the AP English exam despite not being in the AP English class. She told me it was going to be hard given that I was not prepared for it, but she figured that I’d do well and I go a 3 which is not high enough to get out of any first year writing but showed that I just had raw talent for showing up randomly one day and taking an exam I had no frame of reference for. In my two years with her, we went through both British Literature and American Literature and I was overwhelmed by the richness of language and stories that I was digesting. My Junior year, we read Jane Eyre and that novel really transformed me. It was the first novel that I had read that challenged me. I knew that there was layered meaning to this novel and though it came across to my friends as dry and boring I was determined to uncover more. This was the first book that illustrated to me the endless nature of literature. The hundreds of different lenses that can be applied, how much research can be done on one novel, how truly impactful a novel can be and from that moment on I was hooked. Every book we read from that point forward wasn’t just a book to me but a tool of discovery. A mystery, social commentary, a way of viewing and deconstructing the world. With each novel I read, I felt a part of myself being set on fire and it was thrilling. I began to use these tools, themes, symbols, metaphors, personification, feminism and more to build myself and inject meaning into life. This was my revival. Language had come to me and had breathed warmth and joy back into my heart. She showed me what passion and determination feels like. She showed me that even in this broken body, I had this analytical mind that transcended above its own weaknesses and could talk and write itself into existence. 

 No doctor knew what was wrong with me. No doctor in the United States of America, even doctors in other countries were baffled by how determined my body seemed to harm itself. I was a shadow of a person, smale, pale, cracked lips, emaciated, covered in bruises from simply touching a blanket. Tensions were high--clearly I couldn’t carry on like this much longer. We were now in search of a more permeate solution and all these brilliant minds could only come up with one potentially answer: bone marrow transplant. One of the most risky medical procedures in the medical field and there is no guarantee it will work or that this is the right decision. At first I didn’t really know what this meant and then I learnt that this meant a battle for my life. This meant, no college for me for the next two years at least. This meant losing all my hair, losing the very cells that made up who I was. Being locked up in a room by myself for a year with no contact from anyone except my family because I wouldn't have an immune system and I would be hoping that this new marrow would take and grow a new system. This meant that I could die. That it could fail. That I could end up even sicker than I was before with host vs. graft disease and spent the rest of my adult life on even more pills than I was on now. Yet, I was so tired of living. Of waking up every morning and knowing that there was this massive uphill battle awaiting me. I began to wonder if my specific life was worth living. What was I giving the world? Nothing I was just a burden on everyone--my friends, my family, my school. Perhaps this was the answer we had been looking for and if I didn’t survive, well that in it’s own way was an answer. I wasn’t meant to. The tar-monster, this dark hole, this sickness that lived inside had finally won and snuffed out the last piece of light that was inside of me. What could I say--it was too strong. I am just one seventeen year old girl. This was my story, I didn’t have control over the pen anymore. Had I ever or was it all really an illusion and this was the climax that we had been building up to for all these years? Was it time to let go of my authorship? I could have a perfectly, tragic ending just like Romeo and Juliet. 

 My acceptance letter to Belmont University began to haunt me as final decisions became closer and closer. I still had no answer. Everyone in my class was choosing which University they’d be attending and signing their name on the wall of the Senior House, taking pictures and posting the announcement on Instagram. Their posts were clogged with hundreds of comments about how proud all these people were of them. How their life was just beginning and everyone was so excited to see how they would change the world. I didn’t have a post. No comments on how I’d change the world. I only got encouragement that I would make it to see the next morning. That I was strong and I could get through this. I felt like this was bullshit. I’m just a girl, a human. I’m not Wonder Woman, I didn’t  have any powers that I acquired from toxic waste. My final decision was am I having this transplant. This same year, I decided to take creative writing as an elective. It seemed like an easy, fun class that would be easy to manage given that I wouldn’t be around much that year but touring the transplant facility. I’d written ‘creatively’ on my own when I was younger, horrific songs about love, stories about princesses and dragons accompanied with some rough drawings on the side, journaled here and there but I’d never really taken any of this writing seriously. Mrs. Griswold was going to teach it, I’d had her my Freshman year I liked her but she had just had a baby so for half of the semester so Mrs. Powers was going to teach the first half of the semester. This class was unlike any other class I had ever taken. We were just supposed to journal, we had writing prompts, we would write how we were feeling in expressive ways it was foriegn but attractive to me. For some reason, I felt that I could camouflage my pain and call it a poem or a short story. It was fiction. I was losing my will to stay alive and the only time I felt anything was when I wrote. My head was full of so much: what if I died? Am I okay with dying? I’d never get married. Never go to college. Never have children or a job. I’d never grow up--I’d just cease to exist. Was I even existing? I couldn’t do anything. I remember feeling like I was standing on a giant cliff, in a white nightgown, with a massive hurricane surrounding me. I was in the eye of the storm. There was no end to this cliff, and the bottom there was just shap rocks. Did I want to jump off, willing? Or did I want this other monster to take me? 

I had no energy. No will, I hated getting out of my bed. I didn’t want to stand in a room with sunlight because all the light had been sucked out of me. I blamed most of it on not feeling well, a lot of people bought it. Including my own parents. I would still put on this award winning smile and act my way through the day. But when I went to creative writing, I peeled the skin of a happy, functioning  person off of me and became the embodiment of hurt of a person clinging to life. I felt very smart because you can write anything and I didn’t think that it would reflect back upon me. I wrote poem, after poem, flash fiction, short story after short story. In each story there was a girl who was near lifeless, who was dealing with an insurmountable sadness. There was a dark tension that lined each sentence. The language created a sense of urgency, a feeling of being trapped. My characters were numbed and yearned to step into the sunlight once more and feel it warm the inside of them. They were all dejected, othered, and alone. They were all silenced, crying out for someone to hear them and perhaps listen to them, help them. 

One assignment we had was to write something inspired by Frida Kahol’s painting entitled The Two Frida’s. It was a gruesome painting of Frida in a white dress holding scissors in her hand, her heart exposed. She is attached to the other via a small red vein, the other Frida is a polar of the other wearing darker colors, yet she also holds a weapon in her hand with her heart exposed. I immediately began writing a poem I called “Ghost Town”. The images were so visceral in my head, they were screaming to get out. I wrote: 

The sky is bruised:

lacy blacks and deep blues.

There is no wind. 

No sound.

Simply an eerie stillness

that echoes throughout the town. 

There are no clouds in the sky.

It is empty. 

Yet an energy and an anger loom above the block,

as if the street is holding its breath.

A gurney rolls out of the building. 

A white sheet laid peacefully on top. 

A bloody hand slips out from under the sheet.

Lifeless and cold.

She ripped out her own heart. 

That’s what they told her parents. 

She wanted to feel it beating in her hands. 

That way she’d know if she was alive. 

This poem saved my life. When I was driving to school that morning. I remember the sky looked bruised. I had given up, I was ready to take drastic action. I was driving in silence when it hit me. What if I just drove really fast and swerved off the side of the road? Ran into a telephone poll, it’d look like an accident. No one would ever have to know. It sounded better than drowning, which I already felt like I was. Pills were an option. The thought of slitting my wrists and letting the red blood bleed into water sounded poetic but I didn’t want to be found naked. Then I saw that painting and I just wished I could rip out my heart because I truly didn’t know if I was alive anymore. I was already dead. I just needed to leave this physical vessel behind. I needed to feel my heart beating in my hands, I needed to rip it out. I needed to feel it beating in my hands. Its blood dripping down my arm, warming my cold, hardened skin. I needed it to rejuvenate me. 

My words had caused some concern to my teacher. I thought that I had pulled the wool over her eyes, but she had seen through me and heard me. She ended up contacting my parents and let them know that she thought I might be depressed. Yet, she never let me know and she continued to let me speak and express myself. I was encouraged to submit several poems and stories to the National Scholastic Competition which I ended up winning for the South-East Region. I was so shocked and overwhelmed that people felt that my voice was powerful, was worth an award. I had come to believe that it along with my life was worthless. Despite all this turmoil that was haunting me, language somehow managed to never abandon me. It was this small piece of driftwood in the ocean that I clung onto. Everytime the waves crashed on me and my lungs were filled with water, this tiny piece of driftwood would pull me back to the surface and allow me to cough up water and breathe in air. Words simultaneously pulled me into places filled with no light, places where demons existed but once I wrote them into existence, they no longer had as much power over me which allowed me to take one miniscule step back towards life. Language opened up and bled for me, so I wouldn’t have to. I abused it, I stomped on it, my tears fell on the pages and caused the ink to smear but that didn’t stop Her. She kept coming back. She took my abuse, she became my pain, absolved my tar-monster so I wouldn’t have to house them any longer. She knew that once she took hold of them, they would vanish from my mind. She was my savior. She took my lifeless body and word by word, sentence by sentence, poem by poem, book by book, story by story reminded me what it felt like to be alive. 

As High School came to an end I decided to give myself over to language.  I was in Her debt. I couldn’t see the world without language in it. Language was my refuge, it truly was my everything. We were perfectly matched soulmates and I was fully committed in understanding and learning each curvature of her body, every nuance about her, the things that made her uniquely who she was.  In doing so, she would become fully mine. I suppose the English department recognized my passion towards writing because my Senior Year, to my surprise I won the Spirit of English Award. This award is given to the student who shows the most promise in English and whose passion for literature and writing is unmatched.  I was stunned and flatted, I remember tearing up as I ran up to the group of my English teachers and hugged all of them. I was given the most beautiful copy of Emma, by Jane Austen and inside were notes from every teacher saying “your passion and dedication are inspiring”, “never go a day without writing”, “you truly embody the spirit of English’ and from Mrs. Melteson a letter and a poem from Emily Dickenson.  I emboyed language, Her spirit was intertwined with mine.  Writing, reading, analyzing, communication would become my life. I decided to make a decision. I told her I’d commit myself to Her and only Her, give Her all of me. I remember the nervousness that bounced around in my stomach when I took a pen in my hand and declared I am an English major. It was the best proposal I’ve ever made in my life.