At home, I share a bed with my baby sister. It’s cold. The windows are open, and I can hear the crickets and cicadas in the big oak tree outside. Every now and then, the wind sucks in a breath, and the blinds slam against the windowsill.
I can feel every move my sister makes under the covers. When she slides her feet or turns her head, the blanket stretches over both our bodies and tugs the fabric over my shoulder some more. I’m turned away from her on my belly, and if I concentrate really hard, I can hear her heartbeat thrumming through the mattress. Then, I wonder if it’s just my own.
She whispers to herself for hours in the dark. Random things, familiar things. Once, she repeated, "We are chicks," eight times before telling someone something he did. I’ve heard her twist her tongue around the letter L like she was trying it on for the first time.
It’s clear she doesn’t know she’s doing it because when I ask her who she’s talking to, she blinks to lucidity and kicks me, embarrassed. My mom says kids see angels when they’re like that, staring at nothing and smiling. Suddenly, I feel guilty for her breaking her focus.
I don’t know where she goes—whatever world she’s in where her words make sense—but I envy it. I used to go there too (because writing is just talking to yourself, right?). Sometimes, I get sad thinking about all those thoughts I’ll never think again.
I’m turned away from her on my belly, and if I concentrate really hard, I can hear her heartbeat thrumming through the mattress. Then, I wonder if it’s just my own.
I once wrote about a boy I’d never seen. He’d sat next to me during a proctored exam, smelling like white people and cigarettes. I imagined long, blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun and a beard cut close to his face. I gave him a sleeve of tattoos and a lip ring because, what the hell. In this world, it’s okay to be basic. I wondered what it would be like to taste cigarettes in someone’s kiss. I also hoped he’d one day quit.
Nobody knows about the boy from the proctored exam. Or the twelve-chapter novella he inspired. It’s sitting in the depths of my desktop memory, buried under more important things. Like cover letters and resumes. I’m embarrassed of his dead mother and drunken father. Of his younger sister with anxiety who writes words all over her arms and taps sentences into her thighs and kills bullies in the evenings, face aglow behind a computer screen. B-R-O-W-N-_-E-Y-E-S-_-D-A-R-K-_-S-K-I-N-_-R-E-A-L-L-Y-_-M-U-S-C-U-L-A-R-_-C-A-L-V-E-S-. She types slowly because her fingers shake, and her medication makes her brain slow. P-U-P-I-L-S-_-D-I-L-A-T-E-D-_-H-E-A-R-T-B-E-A-T-_-M-A-T-C-H-I-N-G-_-T-H-E-_-C-U-R-S-O-R-’-S-_-T-E-M-P-O-_-O-N-_-T-H-E-_-S-C-R-E-E-N-. Their deaths are always violent.
I don’t know when the story became more about her than him. It’s like that late night train that you board with no destination in mind. Where you find pictures in the popcorn ceiling only to forget what they were and come up with new ones instead. It’s honest and unedited. It’s me smiling at the angels, still raw and vulnerable. It’s talking to the ceiling in the dark. But I think someone interrupted me and now I’m forever waiting for the embarrassment to hit.
I’m afraid that once I begin to tell them, I won’t be able to stop. My eyes will start to sparkle, my mouth will turn up, and then somebody will ask me who I’m talking to, and I’ll hear the blinds banging against wood again.
I stopped writing about my crushes because it leaves evidence behind. When people ask me what my plans are after I graduate, I don’t tell them about all those chapters I wrote over the summer. Or all the ones I plan to write next summer. Well, what do you write, then? My lips stretch with no feeling. My shoulders rise. I look away. Poetry, I might say because it’s okay to be vague with poetry. You can hide behind flowery imagery and some obscure simile—your half-completed thoughts. Sometimes, I tell people I write fantasy because it feels more acceptable than romance. I make up lies and tell myself it’s just another story.
I’m afraid that once I begin to tell them, I won’t be able to stop. My eyes will start to sparkle, my mouth will turn up, and then somebody will ask me who I’m talking to, and I’ll hear the blinds banging against wood again. I’m afraid no one will see the green grass I’m painting or the daisies beneath it. I’m afraid that they’ll point out the edges of my vision, and I’ll realize it’s all on a screen. You zoom out, and I’m in the audience, one of a hundred faces in plush, red seats, staring at a scene I’m no longer a part of. So, I point out the screen to myself before they can. Wake up! I snap my fingers in my face. You’re not a child anymore.
Writing used to be those night-time whispers to me – unwatched, unabashed, I admitted. Now, sometimes it feels like a gun in my face. Because when all the whispering finally makes her throat dry, my baby sister stops. Her eyes are still wide open. I know she’s still thinking her whispers to the ceiling. Then, her eyes drift shut and it’s a new day tomorrow. I wonder at what age you stop talking to angels.
