A Night Well Spent

Say I told you that I spent a good, no, a great, part of my life in numbness training. Men thought me emotionally stable because I wanted nothing, asked for nothing, accepted even less. Women thought me a threat because men thought me well.

I was never well.

Say I told you that in my numbness training I learned to swallow pizzas whole, the thicker the better, anything to block my voice and keep my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth. And say, in this training, I began to consider my ability to bring food back up an art, a talent, a superpower. Co-workers thought me hyper-productive and slightly masculine. My boyfriend, who watched me eat more and still dwindle to sinewy bone, thought me dying, Surely something terminal? he asked me over fish and chips and a pint of dry cider.

I was not terminal.

Say I told you that I paused numbing to grow a baby and the love that I felt nearly killed me. I didn’t know a body could hold anything outside of violence and buffets. And say, in this new holding, lived a desperate fear of losing all that was new—a boy inside of me because I planted him there. A boy inside me by my choice instead of through invasion. A boy inside of me nourishing off all that I would consume and keep. And say, I learned something new in this numb-pausing. I learned to allow food to settle on my lips, linger in my throat, move through the tracks in my body.

I thought I was nearing well.

Say I told you that after the baby, I returned to numbing because feeling—everything, anything—felt like a plastic bag over my head, felt like sucking air through a clogged straw. Anything good only reminded me that, once gone, the gape would be greater, the wound wider. Anything bad, let’s just say, I called this my norm.

I returned to unwell.

Say I told you that I’ve spent five years learning to sit with myself—mid-flame, midnight, mid-bite—and have tried to find the beauty in it. Whatever “it” might be. And say I realize how little I’ve learned in these five years except the way the body defaults to its earliest training. Say, I understand the way unholding a baby will do more damage than any war. Say, last night I went to an empty playground and sat on a rubber swing, kicking my feet into sky and, after, I laid wide on the ground and turned into a snow angel, gravel beneath my nape grinding into me, imprinting a memory that I hoped to later feel. To feel. To feel. I needed some echo or reverberation or even…oh, wait. I’m remembering.

Say, as I flapped and fluttered, I also howled and, after, fetaled myself into earth and watched the swings, empty, yet still swaying. Say that I wondered how they could hold all of me long after I stopped. I wondered if they felt me, if they feel me still.

Say I told you, This, a wonder.

Say, This, a night well-spent.