the fish

notes on the earth's song

I forget I’m a human being. I feel more like an organically shaped, cloud of a creature. I forget that I come into the world through the body first and not the spirit. At the AT&T, they can’t hear my thoughts as I oscillate between realities. They see a girl in Amazon jewelry. Sometimes, I’m just another person in Amazon jewelry. Funny when it feels like there’s not enough room in the ether to hold my latest nightmare and all the emotional aftermath, or my dark jokes, or the fears I have that lurk in sullen and bright corners alike. I feel massive to myself. Then a strong gust of wind nearly blows me off the sidewalk.

I just turned 23. It occurs to me that every second, I’ve never been as old as I am right now. It feels dangerous to go outside, to confront all the unrequited love I feel for pretty much everyone. I can’t tell if my skin is getting thicker or thinner, or if I’ve got any skin on me at all anymore. Being in your twenties feels like wanting an adventure, wanting to sleep it all away, wasting a day, and the guilt of it alone making you feel like you’re dying—all at once.

I actually feel really comfortable about getting older. I have a funny relationship with nostalgia. I love the times before I existed. I think fondly of the early days I hardly remember, but dear God, I can’t think of anything more bone-chilling than starting this whole thing all over again. I can’t stomach the idea of going backwards. There is no time in my life thus far that was even close to pretty enough, or peaceful enough, or quiet enough, to imagine that. I don’t know who’s driving the 2016-nostalgia conversation, but my goodness, I can’t relate to something less. That was the worst year of my life. Every day I’m further from it seems a miracle.

This Earth Day, I water the garden. We’ve planted the collard greens early in the season. Like me, they like the cooler days. Papa’s in Louisiana, so it’s my job to tend to these tiny bodies as they turn their necks towards the sun, swallowing water as they stretch into and out of the dirt—all at once. I think about last summer. How around the corner from here, I ran over a skunk. The whole week, it haunted me. I tried to go to spiritual counseling because my pet fish was sick. The Imam asked me, with disbelief, if I knew what was going on in the world right now.

All I know is what’s going on outside of me, in the neighborhood, in the garden, across the Earth’s face. Every nerve ending has been frayed since childhood by the constant paranoia, the constant news of destruction and defamation. Of people who chase the next kill. It takes a million tears to steel oneself against the toxic air, the toxic food, the toxic water, everything that’s been poisoned and designed to end lives before they begin. My fish dies. It splits into two. I stay up the whole night, trying to prepare for tomorrow. My country bombs another. Across the world, a child is born. A lake dries up. A tree blooms. There is enough food to fill my stomach and my neighbor’s. Someone dies, and the funeral is empty. When spring comes, there is another strawberry harvest.

Evil and benevolence. Nothingness and bounty.

This is the Earth’s song. We get older and learn the chords. Every day, I try to rewrite the melody.