To Walk Alone

To Walk Alone

Art
Autumn Jefferson
Media Staff

I am quite fond of living on a stage. Curating my thoughts for consumption, I love seeing myself in the reactions of others.

But now the awkward interaction with a barista, the stress of an upcoming exam, the slow-motion neon lights in a crowded bar are mine alone, no longer processed and packaged stories to liven someone else’s day.

“When You Were Young” streams quietly on the radio as I find a table. No one knows how this song makes me nostalgic for Texas heat.

If you’re gone, who do I tell? How do I live with just myself?

Walking around Grounds to get lunch, I long for an audience. Please, God, someone stop me on the street and beg me to sing for you; wrap me tightly around your wrist so that I may be worn and used and loved. No one does. I search for some sign of interest, and I am met with an apathy I cannot blame them for.

“When You Were Young” streams quietly on the radio as I find a table. No one knows how this song makes me nostalgic for Texas heat. I could talk for hours about this documentary I saw that explained how the dirty synth guitar is indicative of The Killers hometown of Las Vegas and the American desert, from which they felt distanced after the success of their electro-punk album Hot Fuss. My voice would echo as I willed the room to reply. I suppose that is to be expected. Who falls in love with a stranger on a Tuesday?

I try again on the weekend instead. Strangers suddenly close for one night, for one moment, and the next morning ignored. Passed by on the sidewalk as the ocean that once fell away for a river of alcohol begins to flood, dividing us, and we begin again. They play The Killers “Mr. Brightside.” My mouth stays shut.

Kicking myself, I use my eyes to plead for recognition. A “good work” from professors for being intellectual in class. Adoration in the eyes of possible friends. Awe in the eyes of suitors. I raise my hand. “Eryn,” they say, as the turning gears are spoken into existence and my nerves are on fire, listening intently to the sound of judgement. The judgement is silent. Or are they not paying attention?

Which is worse?

I have conversations with you that you can’t hear. I talk to you.

Why is it that my catalogue of acceptable love has so few pages dedicated to affirmations from within? I am smart, and beautiful, and witty, and only those who make the effort to be in my life truly deserve to love or be loved by me. But my opinion is outweighed by the girl who was just being polite when she said we should get dinner sometime, and the classmates who didn’t roar applause. Third person pronouns and “you” fill my novel. “I” is but a single letter.

Why are my scales so cruel? There is a voice that has followed me from the beginning of time and will follow me to my end. To please her should be my purpose, and by seeing the sun rise each new day, I have already done enough. A North Star guide, but as she shines infinitely, I get distracted by a lighthouse in the distance.

I miss you.

I replay the memories in my head and think back to wishing one could live in a single moment. Could live in satin sheets, in jade eyes, in the eleventh hour. I wish I could wrap time around my wrist and stay so still that the inevitable could never reach me. Motionless, the sun would gleam through the window. Happiness would be forever illuminated in its purest form, and we would never reach that passing moment where I walk away. But time presses on, unraveling the strings that bind us and sending us down separate roads that simply diverge. I have conversations with you that you can’t hear. I talk to you. Nothing you say makes me feel better.

My praise looks like you, though. I have chained up this mirage, shackled it to my hip so it’s never allowed to slip away. When I tell myself “Good job,” it comes from your mouth. My words from the lips of another because when they emerge from my own, I do not believe them. Slowly but surely, I will lose the shell of you in my mind. Those words will look like me as much as they feel like me. Lord knows you’d never speak the poetry I stuff in your mouth.

... in every sweaty night, intoxicated by the moment, lip syncing to cultural touchstones, am I not gulping fine air by my own accord?

Love was my shadow. Or maybe not love itself, but its rude imposter. Using adulation as a mirror, the best parts of myself only stared back in descriptions of my prowess and prestige. When I caught glimpses of myself in the faint yellow lighting of my bedroom, I did not see a person in her entirety. I found myself full and satisfied not after every achievement and every joke, but after others’ appreciation of them. I used laughter as air when I could not breathe underwater. 

But why can I not laugh at myself? Mine are not as glamorous as those lungs unfazed by the sea, but in every sweaty night, intoxicated by the moment, lip syncing to cultural touchstones, am I not gulping fine air by my own accord? Not as vast as the ocean, I’ll concede, but do I not feel the rain of Virginia’s storms on my skin? I live for my own joy. Is that not enough? To walk alone means to bear the weight of the only person I am ever truly guaranteed. She loves me. That love is enough to feel alive.

Today I speak. I speak and speak and speak and, sometimes, I am met with silence. My heart is dynamic, but her beat may sound too drum-like for you. Sometimes it is easier to walk away from the cacophony of chaos and light than fight to hear.

I love the drums.

Maybe one day, when the apartment is filled with nothing but memories and myself, I will learn to play.