velvet feathers
bird hearts, ribbons, and leaving dreamland.
Okay, so I lied. I lied about the birds in my heart. I said I was releasing them all, throwing them out into the world because there was no room in my heart for all that love; I said that I was making them take flight and not worrying about them never returning, because love should be freely given with no expectation, not hoarded. It was a half-truth at best. Objectively correct, but certainly not implemented. As it turns out, even when I leave the door open, the birds simply don’t want to leave. They know that promises made in the dark don’t always hold up in the light. And isn’t that just the story of my life? Making promises, building narratives inside myself that never see the light of day because I don’t think they’ll be heard?
It takes me a week to settle into the knowledge that the fear of being seen as crazy and everything that comes with it— not being believed, not being understood, not being respected or taken seriously or considered credible— is ruining what little life I have. I already knew it, of course, but the settling takes a while. The birds have settled into it. That’s why they won’t leave; they know love requires truth, and that truth isn’t an option when you’ve got part of yourself tucked out of sight so others actually listen when you talk. The fear of perceived insanity is so pervasive that I’m not even really myself when I’m alone. The suspicion that I can’t be honest while still being believed is constant. And I know I’m right. I’ve been proven right my whole life, in classrooms and doctor’s offices and casual conversation, and that won’t change now, if it ever changes. So I have to settle. I just have to stand it. I have no choice but to be awake inside of it.
Of course, then I get the flu, or something close enough to the flu that it keeps me in bed for a day and a half with a bag of frozen peas on my head. Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming. This always happens to me. I could never handle life the way other people seem to be able to.
Laying in the darkness, listening to nothing at all, it occurs to me that I got my wish. I’ve been writing little prayers to leave dreamland and now I finally have. Here is the real world. Here is my life. Here is the strip of light that’s crawling under my bedroom door, trying and failing to reach me. Voices float up from below. I can hear the floor creak with the weight of my mother as she makes something I won’t be able to eat. I feel a bit like that Norman Rockwell painting of the little girl sitting at the top of the stairs, looking down at a party she can’t attend— I feel like the moon in a dark sky. Everything hurts. Everything is beautiful. I know I must have left dreamland because I want to go back. I remember why I used to live the way I did, slowly spinning out on cough syrup and aspartame, hallucinating from sleep deprivation. Here is my life. I want to go back to sleep.
No, I don’t. That’s also a lie. I’ve wasted entire years of my life in dreamland and now I need to be alive. It’s just disappointing that there are drawbacks to being alive— sickness, for one. I wasn’t kidding when I said that this always happens to me. Considering how many days I had to take off of school when I was younger, I’m not remotely surprised that I got forced into these current years of permanent convalescence. I expected it to happen. Of course, I never said it out loud, though— that would’ve discredited me. It’s the fear again. Oh, well.
I am a speck in the dark, reliving years of sick days. I am lost in the fog. I feel childlike in a way that I never have before, impossibly young and small and crying out for home. The light, perfectly yellow and still trying to wriggle beneath the door, always seems like it’s getting closer. It never is. Maybe I’m scared of it and maybe I’m not. Mostly, I’m overheated and achy and I have a migraine. The birds stuck in my heart kick me like unborn children. And, of course, I’m finally alive. How terrible.
Incense, candles, ribbons. White wax for focus. Gold velvet for outward expansion. I face North because that’s the direction of the world, of the earth and odd numbers and everything you can touch; it’s a Wednesday because Wednesdays are for divination and wisdom. I don’t know what phase the moon is in and I don’t give a fuck. I’m not that far down the rabbit hole. Not yet. I don’t have words and I don’t need words. This is what I’ve decided on. This, of all things, is what I’m going back to.
Don’t talk to me about energy or God or the Divine Feminine or anything at all. Don’t say a word. My family is already irritated that I don’t consider myself a witch or follow the ways they’ve set out for me— it’s not like I’ve entirely abandoned them, obviously, I just prefer to make my own way through it— and I don’t need to hear the questions or labels or gloating. My sibling doesn’t like that I don’t do incantations or work with an altar. My mother doesn’t like my ribbons and says I’m denying the Goddess. My father pretends to not care, but his mouth twitches downward whenever my agnosticism is mentioned. It’s fine. Just don’t talk to me, don’t say anything, and don’t blow out my fucking candle.
(“There’s plenty of traditions we have, you know,” my mother says. “You can’t just throw out all our history like that.”
“I haven’t. I still eat raw meat,” I say. She purses her lips.
“You know that doesn’t count. That just— that’s an accident, not a real tradition.” She sighs into the mail she’s sorting. “You didn’t even become a cheerleader.”
“Do I seem like the kind of person that would be a good cheerleader?” I ask, trying to keep the scorn out of my voice.
“Three generations of youngest daughters were all cheerleaders,” my mother continues, ignoring me entirely. “Almost an entire century. And now you’re telling me you’re not sure about the fairies.”
“I’m not saying no, I’m just leaving my options open.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t come crying if you get cursed.”)
I can hear the rain slamming into the window behind me. It’s getting rough outside; I’m sure I’ll end up there in due time, in an effort to let the water beat some sense into me. A medium told me that water is one of my power sources and I said okay like I really believed her. You’re funny, she said. The angels watching over you are suspicious but receptive. And so are you. And so I am.
My knees hurt from digging into the floor. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, staring into the white part of the candle flame. Long enough that the candle is noticeably shorter than it was when I started. I’m pissed off and I’m full of spite and it feels good. I haven’t felt mad like this in a long time. I missed it— I missed feeling, for no reason at all, like I could bring down a house if I wanted to. God bless psychiatric meds for giving me my anger back. I felt fettered without it.
This is me giving up. I’m trying surrender that fear of perceived insanity— I said some things to my therapist and she broke out the P word (premonitions) and I’m talking to mediums on a regular basis (because my mother wanted me to, but here I am, still doing it) and I found my old blue book, my collection of definitions and pseudo-spells, so I’m giving up on looking sane. I’m going back to the way I was as a child. This is the resurrection of the dolls and the omens and the tarot cards, which have gone largely untouched for a long time; this is me breaking out my ribbons, my icons of Mary, my candles. It’s not belief, but I could get there in time. It’s just something to do with myself. There’s this burning void behind my solar plexus and I need to give it a task, to direct it somewhere so it doesn’t eat me instead. It’s a focus. You can call it a prayer or a spell or an affirmation, but whatever way you say it, it’s a focus.
Now, kneeling on the floor, I’m not actually focusing on anything. My focus is the focus itself. The white wax. The gold velvet. The floor. The fact that I’m facing North, and I’ve got a ribbon on my wrist, and it’s a Wednesday, and I’m alive and angry for no reason in particular and fighting off the last vestiges of illness. This is your life, an astrology app tells me, and it’s right, even though I’ve never really believed in astrology and I’m not starting now. The cards say: Eight of Wands, the Queen of Swords, the Star. Momentum, directness, hope. I’ll take it. I’ll take it and set myself on fire with it. Don’t tell me anything. Don’t say a word.
On a rare clear night— this month, it’s been nothing but nonstop rain— I go for a walk and start a list in my Notes app. I can’t think of a title so I just use the rabbit emoji. I almost exclusively wear hand-me-down clothes, I write, and then I put it away. It takes me a few days to write two new facts; my lucky stars are Orion’s Belt and I like the color blue. More are added in the following days. I overheat easily. I am more sensitive than I would like to admit. I lie by omission frequently, though it’s not always intentional. I like the night and the dark. I have a habit of daydreaming. I try not to feel foolish. I try to make myself accept that it’s okay to feel foolish sometimes, to little success. I keep writing things down.
It’s a strange position to be in. For a long time, I was a disciple of leaving yourself behind whenever possible, locking yourself in chests and drowning yourself in the ocean and shooting yourself, abandoning all identifiers for the sake of self-expansion. Now I’m a little older and I know that if you’re nothing, the only place you can go is nowhere. Living in limbo like that is perfectly fine if you don’t need to figure out where to go, but I do, so I can’t afford it anymore. I just can’t. And I know who I am but I don’t know a lot about myself— I keep forgetting or throwing myself into nothing— so I’ve resolved to sort it out and get going. It’s small and it’s stupid and it’s something I need to do. I made the list. I write things down. I don’t like coffee and I like lemon-flavored sweets and I often need to be alone. I go back through my journals, digging for information on myself like a nosy stranger. Morning glories and roses make me happy. I prefer moths to butterflies. I like herbal teas. What a world. What a life.
I leave the house at 3:28 a.m. with a white lace ribbon around my wrist and the sense that something in me has begun to settle. I’m thinking about babies. I’m thinking about potential energy. It’s a Friday morning— Fridays are for love, you know. Do I love? Yes; I have my birds and my birds have me. Maybe they don’t leave as easily as I’d like, but they do leave. One of my favorite poems opens with “Depravity begins with thinking of love / as a radical act” and ends with a release of birds.1 This is something that, for some reason, I am completely certain about. I’m not disturbed by how loud my boots are on the sidewalk (boots are my preferred type of footwear). I step firm and move fast. I once read a fairytale where someone scattered peas across the ground, thinking that any women disguised as men would tread too lightly and slip; if the way I walk makes me a man, so be it (I don’t like being stuck in a certain category or label). No fear. No indecision. I can’t afford that, either. No more dramatics. It’s settling down.
Here come the birds again. I was expecting them because now, in this place and this time, I know where they are. I know more than I used to; it’s a good sign. Here is the real world, full of love and rage and despair. Here is my life. I’ve been told that angels are watching over me and I believe it. I touch the white lace. I touch the angels. Here is my life and nothing else.
As the rain begins to fall, I find, in a distant sort of way, that I feel good.
very beautiful and visual. reading your work also sometimes feels like looking at a series of aesthetic photographs because your descriptions are so vivid. keep it up as always!