When I came to college they gave me a packet of maps.
Don’t walk on the grass, stay on the brick paths, the signs read
and as I walked up the marble steps I stared
at this illogically numbered set of boxes named Chambers – wandered my way
through this set of days they called orientation: a whirlwind of five hundred names and get-to-know-no-one games – and I didn’t know a way to stop my head from spinning

so I walked with the parade of people crouched over their cell phones,
stayed on the brick paths, never let my feet go naked in the grass – I took all the good classes,
worked to get the top grades, went to office hours and highlighted all my pages,
went to the gym once a day and never dared to wander astray down that hill – I filled my schedule to the brim with scheduled social activities then

one day, in mid-November when the sky bled a dull grey monotony, I realized I was – unhappy. I dreaded the tyrant alarm clock of the class bells ringing, wanted to break out of chamber’s white prison walls,
I wanted to mourn the loss of my childhood when books replaced connection, grades replaced affection,
my heart wandering without a sense of purpose or direction –

When I came to college they gave me a packet of maps. They said stay on the path, take your place in the top class of society’s machine: point north toward the six figure salary, raise your well-dressed children within the white picket fences so they do not wander astray, and all the problems will go away – if only you take this little white pill and invest enough in your retirement funds, bracket fun for the weekends and work seventy hours in your week to make enough money to escape to some exotic destination on vacation, take up your white American burden to drive the economy forward with your Christmas purchases – forget that Jesus says blessed are the poor, keep buying in, don’t question the other doors – you are born out of privilege to keep the plastic holy and just do what makes you happy – for a moment

Well hell if I know what makes me happy – if a four year liberal arts college with unlimited free Tenders and blaring music on the weekends can’t keep me satiated, maybe I’m one of those helpless cases that just isn’t meant to graduate,
maybe I’ll be one of those Asheville-out-in-the-mountains hippies that lost their maps years ago, those rebels who never gave their souls to check the IRS boxes

When I came to college, they gave me a packet of maps, but I don’t need them anymore –
I’m done trying to silently triangulate between society, my parents voices’, and my own –
because I am not a lone peg in the cog of higher education’s machine –

I am a human being
who has been gifted with the opportunity to live and breathe for the Earth’s wellbeing,
I am a wonderer who dares to envision the homeless taking their place next to those with PhDs, I am a seeker of the ocean’s visions being breathed into whale’s dreams,

I am a poet whose words will not apologize when I wander astray, for I am here to say
listen carefully: this is the story of one woman’s liberation, whose map will be her wisdom, whose compass will be compassion, and whose voice lies in the resurrection of the soft whisperings of her heart – telling her to let her feet breathe naked in the grass –
yes, she is free, and love will be her path.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
There it goes again
Repeating nonstop
Forever present, ringing
Forever independent

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Why does it persist?
This torturous beat
What awful crime have I done?
What sin warrants agony?

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Never ending pain
Trapped, immobile, set
Now a broken music box
Now permanently placed, shelved

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Wires of life inflamed
Creaky, tired gears
Twined mirrors, dim, blacked out, dark,
Twined scars laid bare, my plea clear

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Stroke down in my prime
Not by bullet, car
Or one too many straight
But misery unyielding

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Yet it continues
Sustained by hope, love
Family, well-wishers, and more
All come, expectations in tow

I was reading a story about a black man living in the Jim Crow era who was able to get away with sitting in the “whites only” section of a train because of one dominating factor: he was rich.

So….because you have money, society rewards you with privileged etiquette. So…because more people know you, society rewards you with special benefits.

So…what about the black elderly woman who lived through slavery and through Jim Crow?
And…how about the young white boy who doesn’t understand why his black friend is in the back, but all his parents explain to him is “that’s the way things are.”
Oh, and what about the southern black man who is economically disadvantaged because his only option is sharecropping?

Fast forward these concepts, and compare them to today. Are some people in our society today economically advantaged because of their family history within the past 100 years? Do we privilege those simply because they have more money? Is this world designed and driven by money, or something else? Is the person who is middle-class any better than those that live with the minimum basics?

I don’t think so.
Some may think that this second person is poor…yes, they are poor financially, but are they poor spiritually? This middle-class person is rich, but what are they lacking?
I think our society is burdened by how money has shaped our lives and interactions. I think I can talk to someone of low-class and upper-class, and still learn so much from each. I don’t think that lower-class people are suffering; I think they know how to live simply and with the basics. I think upper-class people have a lot of power to make things happen, but don’t know why they do it sometimes.
There is too separate of a division between classes, but money should not be determinant of our worth.

Try having a personality, it’s worth something.

I’m not any different than a bunch of girls on this campus. I live in a world of comparisons. Contrasts. I can’t look at someone else without feeling like I can’t do what they do, and that I should. I look at their bodies and either try to use them to make me feel, just for a minute, please God just for a minute, good about my own, or I am abused by them and knocked down a peg further into the hole of self-doubt.

We all have demons, I realize.

I am messed up and perfect in a strange way.

I am recovering.

Food isn’t dangerous anymore.

Most of the time.

There are times when I look at what I’m eating and I can’t breathe for a moment and if it’s not what I planned or what I expected if it’s more than others are eatingifitsascaryfoodifitsabadfoodifiitistoomuchfoodisitnotenoughamihungryimnothungryitdoesn’tmatteryoushouldeatbutdon’tstartanewbadhabitbutfoodshouldn’tbescarysoishouldusteat

Right?

Right.

Wrong.

Right.

Day by day, meal by meal, minute by minute my answers change. Sometimes the anxiety builds to a point but now I’m on meds and they’re helping. And my friends. They help a lot. And sometimes not. Sometimes I’m still alone. I feel guilty crying a lot, but my emotions can’t be dealt with by starving myself, by running obsessively anymore, so I deal with them by crying. And sometimes still by eating too much. Or not eating enough. Or drowning myself in aspartame. Or chewing gum. Or doing more homework.

More homework.

The people you see working. Constantly, diligently. Maybe they’re not working to get it done, maybe they don’t have it under control and are so ahead of the game, maybe homework is a distraction, a way to finish something, or start something, maybe their work is their vice. A dangerous one that feeds the voice in their heads saying you’re not doing enough.

Enough.

Everyone else is doing enough. And look, you wreck of determination to your detriment, look at them. They can handle it without breakdowns, they can handle it all without clutching at his fleece, barely able to stand, without shaking, without holding theirheadbetweentheirhandsandhearingITcomedownfeelingITsweightandITSclench
Around
Your
Gut

They can get through it.
And their gut doesn’t betray them in all of the ways like it does you.
It doesn’t lie to them.
Tell them they’re hungry when they’re full, tell them they’re full when they’re starving, tell them they should listen to IT and do more, always more.
They can listen to themselves and I not only cannot do that, but have lost my voice.

But.

It comes back.
A little bit.

I remember memories
Scenes
Thoughts
Varied little vignettes from before here.

I make up preemptive memories in my mind for after here.

Or for after right now.

I look again at the girl who passes by my table.
I check again the food I lift to my mouth.
I glance at my to-do list.
I listen.
To the murmur of the people around me and hear, suddenly, hints of what I am feeling. And I want to yell.
To shout.

Or maybe to whisper, because that is less threatening and anxiety producing.

We are all of us struggling somewhere. This image of perfection, never dereliction. This projection of calm in the middle of the storm.
It is a lie.
We are all of us struggling somewhere but here that’s not okay.
Oh sure, sometimes it’s ok.
When you have a lot of work. A hard review, a long practice, the list of minor complaints goes on. But it’s a fake list for a facsimile of a conversation. For who wants to share their problems, divulge their demons to someone who seems to be free?

I do.
Because none of us are free.
I’ll talk about it.
My anxiety.
Deep seeded fears that have rooted themselves in my very being of inadequacy, of not doing enough for doing’s sake.
How food scares and pulls me.
I will talk about it.
I am not an other here.
You aren’t either.

It’s my time now, it might have already been your time, or maybe your time will be tomorrow, or maybe it’s today, with me.
We are all of us struggling.
So we, none of us, should have any qualms about showing this.

Perfection is unattainable.
Let the depiction, the veneer down, to see truth.
The truth of an experience is far better, so much more approachable, and so much more livable.
Sustainable.
And I want to sustain.