Revising Loneliness

I was born in a whale, but the whale was dead, so I thought: okay. Let’s deal with this.

I didn’t know how to push. I sat there for a while and considered the art. It’s maybe a miracle. The impulse to move. I thought I could do that. I waited. I tried again.

It was shear force and will that got me out.

A suction and a gush.

It’s easier to imagine your own birth, I think, when you give birth. Like empathy. What brings parents together. I gush. You gush. We all gush. Something like that.

Regardless, I want to share more of this gushing, where the water took me, and how I flowed out– however, I fear it will sound like a James Joyce novel, but for dummies, such as: There is a table. I am under it.

Where was I?

After gushing, I grew.

At Marshalls, women tried on blouses while I hid in the clothes racks. There, surrounded by piles of garments, I fell asleep and dreamed of returning to my whale, where I was hidden, but satiated momentarily.

It wasn’t the same.

I dressed like a normal person because a woman dressed me, and even when I grew older than before, and she didn’t do that anymore, I still dressed normal because I imagined her dressing me. I grew and dressed into another version of what she would dress me like. I enjoyed being dressed. I appreciated being woken up. I loved napping and how this was adorable. How I felt adorable.

Hiding was soothing or scary and then it was cute.

I can’t think of the equivalent of this as an adult.

Maybe there is none. You hide and no one finds you.