By Jensen Young
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Suicide, self harm, mentions of transphobia from family members
The evening air lines my throat like honey. It’s not really pleasant, but lying in the grass isn’t really pleasant either, and neither are all the gnats, so it feels fitting. I turn over on my side and bring my knees to my chest. My baggy dress doesn’t move gracefully with me; it bunches up in the dirt and sticks to my lower back. Dress. One syllable.
I can smell rain in the air and I know I only have a few more minutes before I’m both dirty and soaking wet, but I don’t move. I want the overgrown grass to consume me, to shelter me, to conceal me from the world. Maybe if I lie still long enough it’ll grow over me, wrapping me in a green cocoon, and maybe one day I’ll emerge as something new, something maintainable. Maintainable. Four syllables. Clunky. A chore to get out of your mouth.
My fingertips graze the tops of my brown leather boots, and trace the stitching that’s beginning to fray. When I walk on tile the small heels clack like I’m wearing stilettos, like I’m a real woman. I move my hand to my chest and I feel the heat that’s there, the warm-blooded pulse, each beat energy expended to keep me alive. I want to give the beats to the grass, I want to give it the energy I waste so it can make itself greener, so it can make new shoots and continue being what it undeniably is: grass. It’s just grass. One syllable.
Why can’t I just be one syllable?
I pull off my boots slowly, careful to disturb the Earth as little as possible. I’m not wearing socks because I’d left the house in a hurry. I’d sat at the foot of my bed, listening to them talk for as long as I could. I really did try and take it. I tried to take it and be strong, to tolerate it, to endure it, like I thought I’d learned how. But I couldn’t. I’m as fragile as a new green bud. I’d shoved my feet into my boots and slid open my window and I’d slipped out, two heels on the patio, clack-clack-clack as softly as possible, into the meadow, over the first big hill and then the second, and finally to the grove that overlooked the mountains, though at this time of day they were just purple jagged lines ripping into the horizon.
I stick my toes into the grass, weave it between them. I feel something crawling over the top of my foot but I don’t look down. Whatever it is, it has more right to be here than I do. Whatever it is, it's something simple, something that makes sense, something easily understood. It’s probably an ant. One syllable. A word even children know.
I hear voices. I can’t make out any words, so they’re probably from the house. They’re probably calling my name. My name is one syllable. It’s a name children know.
I tried to use a different name once. It was three syllables. My nieces couldn’t spell it. My mother intervened before they learned how.
I feel the grass between my fingers. They know where I go to hide. They found me once, a few years ago, and the grove hasn’t been mine since. Mine. All the fragile things are one syllable.
I hear dull thumps far off in the distance. That’s the sound they make when they thud around in their boots. Like they don’t fit right, and they have to stomp them into the ground to keep them from falling off. I brought it up once when we went into town and my mother and sister were walking like they had geese biting their heels. They told me I’m too picky about the way my boots fit. I’m too picky about everything.
I can hear them getting closer. For them, every step they take represents love. I try to remember that. For them, holding me down, shearing off my hair is love. For them, taking my closet door is love. I tell myself this every day, whisper it at night to make it true. Love is only one syllable, because it might be the simplest thing of all. Love is so simple even children know when they have it. They will find me and they will call me with love something that is my name.
I will go home with them. I will take off my dress and eat at the table. Then I will wash up and go to bed early.
One thing is simpler than love. Death. One syllable, and then a long silence.
Jensen Young is a writer of science fiction, speculative fiction, and realistic fiction, and has been featured in Mulberry Literary and Bloodletter Magazine. Jensen is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing. You can reach out at jensenyoungwriter@gmail.com.
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