There’s a story about me but I didn’t write it. It lives beyond me and I read it over and over and skip over the parts that have to do with someone else. I am being followed. I am 28 years old and I do not have a kid. But I do have a tiny version of myself roaming around the planet.
I don’t know how to feel angry. I can clench my back. I can watch someone else scream and ask if they meant sadness. I can laugh.
I think about how it must feel to live to be older than a parent was when they died. That’s the way it feels — like I’m dead for the moment, alone longer than she was. I’ve outlived myself. She’s walking the earth on my behalf with offspring in her hands. I am in the darkness and I don’t exist. No one asks.
I’m up late. I am watching myself through a screen. I am alone. There is a part of me that is understood, but I do not recognize her — we are not alike. I think about the way a family grows, how I live beyond it. How I am not sure I know who I am without imagining how I look as I am being followed.
When I start to get close to someone, I cannot fight the impulse to tell them about her. As soon as the story is written in my own mouth, we both disappear.
There’s a story I wrote, but it’s not about me. It lives beyond me and I read it over and over and skip over the parts that have to do with me. I am being followed. I am 28 years old and I do not have a kid. Someone else does.
<3