Hollow Truths

 The concept of life and its fragility is more terrifying than death (to me). I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of the slow giving out of my body; watching fragments of myself deteriorate back into the earth while I am still alive. I am terrified of the required humility of aging. I am even more afraid of the reckless, wild-eyed ignorance of youth, the intoxicating false sense of security that I am far too often seduced by.
We are not invincible.
 When I was eight years old I was a hypochondriac. After watching a late night documentary on heart disease I became obsessed with dying. One night I curled up on the couch with my father and begged him to let me visit the doctor for a heart examination. His response still sprawls across the paper banner of my mind in my moments of fear.

"You are not sick. 

You are young. 

You are going to live a long and healthy life." 

 After months convinced it was my time to go, my father relieved my compulsion with affirmation. Sometimes, when the night is cold and I cannot afford to keep my heat on high, I burrow beneath the weight of my comforter and meditate on my father's words. I hope they were prophetic.

 I feel the most vulnerable when I am washing my face at night.
 I see how I have aged.
 There is a woman in my face who wasn't there before. Her eyes glisten with liberation and sexuality. Tragedy burdens her brow. She stupefies and petrifies me. I am grateful for her cheekbones. They are tiny domes of childlike wonder. Their lights have not completely burnt out. In their sporadic flicker I still see my Jade.
 My breathing stabilizes. 

 Cancer is growing up. Chipped teeth, taxes, mold above the shower head, oral sex, low credit scores, affairs with married men, never having enough money to get a haircut, accidental pregnancies and crippling self doubt is growing up. Realizing your degree amounts to nothing, that he didn't love you (and never will), empty inboxes, the vacancy of an open highway, the hollow feeling of lying next to your new spouse who feels like "A Sweater Poorly Knit", seeing the embalmed body of your dead grandmother in a casket, watching the innocence of childhood unmask itself like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz...

 These things are growing up. 

 I am growing up an orphan. I have come to find being a scared child never fully goes away.

 I could be hit by a bus tomorrow.
 The world is vast.
 We are finite. 

 If I think about these hollow truths too much I find myself pressing my lips against my pillow like a husband, praying to God mine will get here soon. I ache for my husband like I have loved him my whole life.
 Husband, you are a vanishing act to me.

 My voice burrows in the mounds of bedsheets.

"God, if you just give me a husband, I will have sex with him every night and every time he wants. Even if I don't feel like it. And we won't fight about the petty things and I won't be mean...ever. And I will be a good wife. I will work and cook and exercise and do art and write. I will be the heroine of my household, Jesus. Please give me a house to hold."

 Dear husband, I get desperate when you are not here. And you are never here. I am starting to hate you for that. I have saved myself for you despite men rifling through me like fingers through a frayed, faded rolodex. What are you doing tonight? Who is in your bed? Will you hurry home? I pray that you are praying for me too. I will be the heroine of your household. Just come into my house and I will hold you.

 I do not want another Christmas to go by alone. 

 The pendulum swings.

 I hate the want inside me for you. I have to get this out tonight because tomorrow I will wake up in my autonomy. I wear my independence like warpaint. Most of the time I am boasting about how I don't want anyone. But the truth is I am just a coward who is too afraid to admit I want it all.

 Maybe I am the one who got us lost. 

 I am not sick. 

 I am young. 

 I will have a long life.

 I am not sick.

 I am young. 

 I will have a long life.

 I am not sick. 

 I am young. 

 I am not sure which one is lonelier.