Article by Tasha Finkelstein Art by Isabella Hageman
Disclaimer: there are things I will not disclose here. Feral things like digging through trash cans, affirmations of my tastebuds, details of my relationship with the moon, etc. I get the sense that there is no place appropriate enough to host the parts of myself that sink to the bottom. And so I have to remind myself just because I don’t speak of these things doesn’t mean they aren’t there. For instance, what I don’t say: the moon spilled out on me, not you (let him think it’s him).
Left to my own devices, I will spill it all out until I become drenched.
INT. KITCHEN - MORNING
A little girl sits at the kitchen table over a plate of waffles. Her mom is gone for the weekend, leaving her dad in charge of breakfast. He passes his daughter the jug of syrup, unaware that his wife usually does the task of pouring it for her. The little girl welcomes the jug in her hands, unaware that its weight will topple over her little fingers.
This is where my shakiness was born, trying to lift what is too heavy to hold. I won the award of my Dad’s grin when I let my hands slip. I was trying on independence when I let my hands slip. With my waffles drenched, this sugary freedom didn’t exactly fit. It was a little too roomy in there but still warm, something like a winter coat a few sizes too big. I was too small and the kitchen table too sticky. I remember my Dad offering me a napkin to clean up the spill but when I reached out my hands they clung to the paper. Too soggy for this world, I stick to everything I touch.
EXT. DOCK - DAY
A little girl visits her best friend in a beach town where people walk barefoot and there are no cars. There are no cars but there is a boy around their age. He is sweet and he crosses over from a boy into their friend. The little girl instantly has a crush on him.
That summer we were seven. We met a boy who lived in that summer town all-year round. One day, the three of us went to the dock, looking for fish that struggled to make themselves visible against murky, July water. The day dragged along and we followed the boy to his house at the end of the island. His mom let us in when we got there.
We were in the basement of his house and I had this idea. I didn’t want to just be a girl anymore. I wanted to be tough like the boy we had met. I thought if I could be more like him and less like me he’d be impressed. I wanted to be tough so I thought of a triple dog dare for the both of us. I’d put a pillow in front of my stomach and he’d punch me and it wouldn’t hurt. But when I put the pillow in front of me, it didn’t protect me from anything. When I felt the blow of his hands something inside me ached. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but that day I encountered a leaky thing in me trying to get free.
INT. DORM ROOM - EVENING
A little girl is now a college girl. She makes a cup of tea, watches the steam rise, and waits for the kettle to beep. Before the water is done, she opens the cap to the plastic bear-shaped bottle and drizzles the honey into an empty cup. Something gooey. Something rough. Honey. Clay. No heat yet to melt the two into one.
I used to tell the boy I loved that he had a funny way of making tea. I’d tell him you’re supposed to add the honey in after pouring the water, not the other way around. I have a habit of creating arbitrary rules for myself and others. I don’t like being wrong. But now I think maybe he was right about putting the honey in first. It’s easier for it all to melt that way.
When we ended things, I tried to replace what I knew. You see, I needed warm things to hold onto. Things such as a cup of tea. A simple task, really. And yet I expected my hands to do something different. I didn’t realize I was a puppet and my puppeteer a 19 year old boy manipulating my fingers to open the plastic bear of honey before the water was even done boiling. Some ways of moving aren’t fully mine as much as I want them to be.
One of the last times we were together I told this boy about the nature of his hands, how I loved their weathered texture. Rough enough that they weren’t my own. Not so rough that I couldn’t connect. He’d get self-conscious thinking my comment was a jab when all I wanted to do was make myself a pair of gloves out of these hands, something to put on when it got cold. It was nothing personal. Just poor blood circulation, you know.
Now that I am no longer in love I have time to Google things like “why is honey in a bear shaped bottle?” My brain feels like real mush when I find out it’s because, duh, A BEAR LIKES HONEY. The bear takes the form of its desire and the honey is contained by whoever desires it and isn’t that just utterly twisted? Sometimes I wish I could take the form of a plastic bear but without any of the honey. Sure, I’d be full of air, but I wouldn’t have to deal with any of that stickiness.
EXT. PARK - AFTERNOON
A girl finds herself in a park. She’s coming from the bookstore on St. Marks Place, where a rainstorm almost left her dripping into the sewer. With books and postcards sheltered away in the waistband of her jeans, she zig zags the walk back looking for shelter under scaffolding. When she reaches the park, the sun comes out. Drying up what came spilling forward, glistening over the arch.
Spring break I returned home to the city I spent three years sharing with someone else. I remember seeing cherry blossoms so pink and puffy in the special afterglow the rain likes to leave. I took a picture of these flowers but there was no one to send it to. I remember finding three incredible songs in a row. I found him in the lyrics of the last one, trying to tell me something but I couldn’t hear any of it. The rain had drowned him out. I remember I found a key left on the sidewalk and I wondered what someone was trying to lock away.
While I was home, my mom and I got lunch. She told me I seemed lighter, like a weight had been lifted from me. I was lighter. But how to explain to her that I didn’t know what to do with all my emptiness now? When I was with him I had someone to confirm there was something more than air inside of me. So a scary thought appears. What if I only knew wholeness through someone else? I know that there was once something inside of me because waiting for him to call felt like scooping my insides out. So that thought turns into a darker one. What if he took all that was left of me on the way out?
I’d like to believe there are ways of moving that are mine, just mine. But the only true movement I know is the way my hands like to shake. After we broke up, I think I dropped five mugs in the span of three months. I was tired. I threw the shards in the trash and didn’t bother gluing any of the bits back together.
INT. BAR - EVENING
A girl sits in a bar and it doesn’t really matter which one. In Dublin, she will juggle drinks back to a table where someone new waits for her. The pints escape their glasses, sweet liquid sticking to her hands. She gets it now, that desire is so often a balancing act.
All this spilling makes getting to know myself tricky. I am studying abroad this semester, I have never been so social, and I am stuck between two different hypotheses for why that may be. One, because I am not lonely for once. Or two, because I am the loneliest I have ever been.
The emptiness I feel makes me search for wholeness all the time. When I start seeing someone new I find that defeat lies in sticky unavoidables, in leftover beer on the table. There’s something inherently hollow in not knowing someone well. But the hollowness paves the way for a more fluid mode of desire. You get to fill in the gaps of what you don’t know with yourself, encountering something unfamiliar and true. I wish I could feel whole without leaking all over the place, without needing people to stick to. But I’m not there yet and I don’t know if I ever will be.
When I find people to stick to I can see omens. I was drinking wine on the roof with this someone new and I saw a shooting star move at lightning speed. I questioned my eyesight for a second but he said he saw it too. When I find people to stick to I discover snails and hedgehogs around hidden corners of a new city, and the dingy bar we go to play pool at turns into a glowing backyard garden, a portal of sorts. I think I see the world through glasses I borrow from other people. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the prescription right and I do feel dizzy most of the time.
In the park, I feel less empty when I look up from my phone and see a woman in a bright green hoodie wrap her arms around a crumbly tree stump, giving it all the love she’s got. She looks my way and smiles, as if she’s been expecting me. It’s a common occurrence: I see strangers and I get sad that I won’t see them again. In the airport bar, I spot a woman with pink hair and lose sight of her and wonder if she was just a product of my imagination. I think if I count all the older ladies with pink hair maybe I will become closer to who I want to be.
Last spring, I remember one particularly bad night where I spilled too much of myself out on someone else’s floor. When I woke up the next day, I spent the whole morning in bed trying to find the perfect poem to send in lieu of an apology text. A few hours later, I realized that I was never going to send any poem after all. I was just looking for the words to apologize to myself.