The Definition of Dysania (A Collection of Short Trepidations)

ʜᴇɴᴄʜᴍᴀɴ (2)

'On the streets' is such a nondescript term. Which street? Why are you 'on the streets'? Are you standing on the street or are you flopped over on the pavement like some sort of stinky starfish?

Are you walking on the street? Are you walking home? Are you walking away from it?

Sometimes not even normal people know.

But, after all, there is no such thing as normal.

Just perspective.

***

If all you have ever known was that everyone has bright blue hair, thinking yourself to be so special that you don't, then wouldn't you be shocked to find out that it is just a dye or wig?

Unless you are one of those people with blue-black hair; you're just lucky.

My hair is only a dull brown. Not honey, not dirty-blonde, just boring old brown.

'Normal', right?

Wrong! The most common hair color is regular black hair. More than 70 percent of people have black hair. Wouldn't that be more 'normal' than brown then?

My most 'abnormal' quality is grey eyes, though, they only seem to creep people out. They've been described as 'dead' or 'soulless'.

Never normal.
Never warm.

I haven't been warm in any definition of the word in a long time. This city is so cold in the winter and if you have natural warmth, then all people will try to do is huddle closer to you to steal it like some sort of elemental pickpocket.

I'm friends with a couple of those.

Pickpockets are generally kids. But that doesn't mean that being a pickpocket at a young age is normal; at least, that's what the mayor says.

There is so much crime in this city that the mayor thinks that by minimizing the smaller problems, he can simply make people forget about the larger ones.

I wonder if that has ever worked for him.

***

I found this notebook on the cement next to a dumpster outside of a Target. The pages are a bit dirty, and the cover is torn in half. I remember my friends in high school saying how keeping a diary was helpful for whatever you want to keep to yourself, so long as you hide it well.

Keeping it on my person has done wonders already.

***

She had to keep it under a false bottom in her drawer, I remember. Amy's parents were always so damn strict. Her words, not mine.

They kept her on diets and wanted her to be a model one day.

During a particularly brutal one, she passed out right when we were leaving class and cracked her skull open on the corner of the counter she sat by. It was in art class; her favorite.

She had such a ruthless style of painting that I always loved. Her strokes were jagged and rough with anger, but by the end, her kaleidoscope of colors could move you to tears.

She hated wearing makeup, she loved the color pink, and she was just getting into soft rock music. Her parents never would have let her have access to that 'demonic chanting', but I let her listen to it on my phone when we had downtime during class. She found it thrilling—as if listening to Elton John was some sort of rebellion on par with doing drugs.
I guess, to her, it kinda was.

Only: I think her parents would rather her take cocaine. Music can't make you thinner.

***

I last heard that her brother, Louis, is doing well.
Soon after her death, he confessed to the diet that she was on out of pure guilt to the counselor, and their parents were investigated for child abuse and neglect.

They couldn't find enough evidence on them, and so they only had a half-baked case against them that consisted of the heartfelt pleas of minors and the distracted notes of well-meaning teachers.

In the last week that I had cell service, I remember seeing Louis post about his long journey and announcing his marriage to a kind-looking woman.

Perfection is what people strive for when they have never seen it before.