The Devil All the Time

11

Sometimes, when the moon dips behind the trees of my yard, I like to look out there. Out at the world outside mine that seems so foreign, so frightening. For years, I have been trying so hard to grow up and be someone that I'm not. I've been trying to fit into a mold that has been both too big and small for me, and I can't shrink or grow to be enough for it. That world out there is so much. It requires you to know and be known, to understand in ways that I can't. There have been times when the role I need to play has been laid bare before me, and I had no room to question whether or not I agreed with my part in this play. There are days when the strong face of grief goes out for the day and the weakest parts of me come out to engulf my mind in their deadly embrace. There are days when the hottest parts of my psyche seem to flare up in pain and sadness, and the world outside seems to blur as the roles I try to fill run hot down my cheeks, running paths down my face for the other roles to follow. When I was a child, I learned with bright eyes the meaning and purpose of erosion, and the way that something weak could undo something so strong. I wondered if after the years of my life wore away at my face, I would still look like me. Not to say that I expected to look the same, but I wondered if my friends and family would recognize my eyes, my mouth, the way my cheeks dimple when I smile. After I erode, will they still see the me they saw when I was five, dreaming of fairy schools and Billie Holiday? If they don't, who will they see under that decay? A sad, old memory of a woman? Of a child with a dream of flying? Will they see me, or the roles that I have to fill?

    Sometimes I sit for hours by the window, as the moon moves on ahead, wondering whether I am still the me I used to know. If that erosion has already claimed me as its lover for this life of mine. I wonder if the world out there will make me mature into crabapples or sweet honey. And as the sun peeks its head over the horizon, I walk softly to my bed, promising to keep the bright eyes of my brother hopeful. Promising to stay in character, so he doesn't have to. Because this world, this world of mine is still just as cruel. Because I want him to make a world of his own with his two little hands. Because he is the light that I lost long ago. Because I will sacrifice myself to the jaws of both of these worlds, just to see him keep smiling.