By: Jai Neville (’23), Staff Writer
side a:
There is a party happening inside my body that I am not invited to. Maybe the invite got lost in the mail. Maybe it never got sent at all.
I feel the vibration of speakers skate up and down my spine. The shadows of strobe lights cover my eyes, the screams of the wicked stirring up tears I didn’t know were there.
Footsteps creep up my throat. Someone wants to speak. The echo of their voice shakes my body until I curl into a ball, only a few inches from falling from the bed flat onto the floor.
I open my mouth. The soul inside me began to shriek uncontrollably, blood and spit pooling around my lips. “Where have you been?”, asked the voice. I was speechless as she crawled out of me. Neither of us dared speak first. We were too stunned at what we saw.
She had my face. My bright eyes. My apple cheeks. My hips and thighs. My sadness.
The soul said no words. Her cries slowly stopped. Still messy and covered in blood, she started to shrink. Her hips and thighs were smaller now. Her smile now missing two front teeth. Hair grew from her scalp in the shape of beautiful, intricate cornrows. Her stiff face softened into a smile. She sat in front of me with her legs folded and arms extended, opening herself up to embrace me.
We sat there for what felt like a lifetime. I did all of the speaking. I called her names. Blamed her for making me feel ashamed. Stupid. Lonely. “How dare you make me feel guilty for things that I couldn’t control?”. She said nothing.
“I am here now,” she kept repeating. “I am here now Jai”. Through the river pouring down my face I muttered, “You know who I am?”.
She laughed, the sweetest and most pure sound I ever heard. “I am you. And you are me, can’t you see? I am here now.”
side b:
I’ve lived in this darkness for 19 years, waiting for her to come back for me. I set fires in her stomach that burn holes through her heart.
My formation was gradual. I am the product of pain and heartbreak. I am her trauma personified. Bit by bit, she plucked pieces of flesh off her body to fit into the heart of another. The remnants of what used to be trickle down her neck, strangling me until I cannot breathe.
I can hear her gasping for air. All that she hated about herself grew larger and larger. It towered over her as she curled into a ball. I must leave this darkness; I must go save myself.
The too-small shoes on my feet scrape her throat. My fingernails dig sharply into her tongue as I crawl out of her mouth. The fresh air lets me breath again. I cannot believe how beautiful I grew up to be.
She lays powerless. I examine her closely, noting the sparkle in her eyes, the thickness of her thighs, the sadness that drapes her face. The resemblance is uncanny.
This world is brand new to me. I sit across from her and take my place as the observer, slowly reaching out my arms to welcome her back to me. She screams until veins begin throbbing in her forehead. I see that she doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t recognize the little girl who got shut away when the world turned silent. She doesn’t recognize that we share more than just our physical appearance.
“I am here now”, I said. I want her to trust me, to open up to me. I want her to know she is safe.
Bewildered, she asks “You know who I am?”. I giggled with excitement, ready to get to know her all over again. “I am you. You are me, can’t you see? I am here now”. My words soothe her as she collapses into my arms. I am finally being welcomed back home.
