Everyone dies the same. I know this for fact, despite never losing anyone. With two pairs of grandparents, two parents, two siblings, and two dogs, it’s easy to imagine everything in life comes in sets of two. Left Twix and right Twix. Green lights and stop signs. Birth and death.
My therapist loves to remind me that there are thousands of ways to die. And sure, that does give me pause, but I need to set this straight.
Everyone dies the same.
Alone? One might inquire. But no, I believe it’s possible to die together.
In pain? That’s not true. Think of the people who die in their sleep.
Is it– The brain suffocates. It runs out of oxygen. And you return to the place from whence you came.
I imagine dying from blood loss as awful and painfully steady. Like riding an escalator that you can clearly see the top of. And while it’s horrid for the person, I can’t help but wonder if the oxygen in their blood rejoices at the sight of the atmosphere, the very air it once called home.
I remember blood. And water. Blood. And water. Boy, and dog; blood, and water. Pouring from my nose to my clothes.
I think I was sitting at the birch-colored IKEA table I never bought. Full of things that became mine.
Black cards. White cards. It’s called “Pillars of Fate”. Spread across the table the way some boys wish they could see me. But I never give them what they want. They get blood. And water.
Water down my throat from a plastic bottle held by spider-web hands. He asks me if I feel light-headed. I stand up.
Clear rushing in, red rushing out. A white paper dam tries to keep the balance, but gets stained in the process. And thrown out.
It’s not water in the brain, it’s metal in the mouth. Tangy, iron-heavy, stifling. But not lethal. Dancing on my tongue because the throat is full, the flow is thick.
He asks me if we should go to the ER. Voice shaky. Eyes round as saucers. I laugh real hard.
He thought I was made out of money. And he’s wrong, but then again, we share an apartment.
And I pay full rent.
Fall in love again and again. Fall in love again and again. Fall in love again and again.
The room is swimming now. My skin may be covered in eczema, but I know it when I see it. It’s full of water.
Cards on the ceiling, dog on the table, my head tilts weird as my vision darkens at the edges, like an old-timey vignette. My eyelids clock out of their shift early, hiding my irises, and leaving my body slack.
For a moment, in the darkness I remember shaking.
Then pushing through the thick velvet, my eyes shed their curtains.
I stare right into his brown-green soul.
And suddenly, dying sounds very scary.
“It’s not a terminal disease.”
“The condition doesn’t decrease life expectancy.”
“It can reduce your quality of life, but there are treatments, medications, and lifestyle changes that you can—”
Believe me, I’ve tried it all. Pills on top of pills on top of pills. It’s easy to mistake my pantry for a pharmacy. But it’s hard to bring myself to use it. One round, white bug, another round, slightly pinkish bug, my personal favorite are the plastic-y little guys that’re the color of wallflowers. Designed for vastly different functions, but once they’re down the hatch, they hurt all the same.
After one such instance, I recall seizing violently, my veins replaced with fire, as I gasped for air on the couch. I wondered if that’s what dying felt like— burning alive. Naturally, I was rushed to the ER and proceeded to writhe in a bed for hours because there were two codes and I wasn’t actively dying. Fair.
As I laid there, shaking uncontrollably, my mind drifted to the other children in the ER. Particularly, why they were there. What had brought them there. How unfair it all seemed. I stared at the smiling fox in the window, as another tremor rocked my body, filling my blood with fire.
Surely, we were all too young to know such pains.
But then again, death doesn’t discriminate.
fluorescent orange bottle laid on a
birch-colored IKEA table;
stray glucose droplets clung to its
ridges, evidence of previous fullness;
it was tossed into a gray, pull-out trash
can at eleven-seventeen am, approximately
two hours after the substrate was ingested
entirely.
by young female age less than twenty years old
but greater than two.
breath hydrogen levels will be shared with her
second gastroenterologist and maybe a
third test will be ordered but only after her
second round of antibiotics, which will take
two weeks to finish.
two ER visits this year,
no recent hospitalizations.
blood pressure: one-oh-one over fifty-one
heart rate: sixty-five beats per minute
blood oxygen level: ninety-nine percent
diagnosis: none, patient appeared to be
He
a l t
h
y
and
St
able
.After many years of online highschool, I felt completely disconnected from the outside world. I had no knowledge of what slang or what clothes was fashionable, no clue as to what was acceptable and what was ‘cringe’. My classmates had traversed time and space, acquiring a coating of lacquer with each hurdle they overcame, each day they conquered. And there I was, soft and dull, at my high school’s graduation day. Four years had passed, and the only thing that had changed was the number in my medical records, labeled ‘AGE:’.
I remember how clearly I could hear my family’s cheers, as I crossed the stage, diploma in hand. Their shouts were so distinct, because there were no others to muddle them. And while my peers snapped group selfies and carpooled to grab Korean BBQ, I walked out of the venue with water in my eyes.
People underestimate the crushing weight of pain. How it mutilates every aspect of your life until you are the smallest you’ve ever been. When this happens, everything stops mattering. And your heart, which has carried you all your life, realizes that no medicine can cure pain. So, it will seek a companion. Because while nothing can make you want to live, a good friend can make it feel worthwhile.
It was freshman fall, when I was young and unfathomably insecure. Slamming myself into a sparkly red dress with not a minute to spare. It was a gala. The Residential College Board Formal. And I was just another girl in the engineering dorm, who’d gotten ready far earlier, but was now running behind.
Initially, I’d selected something elegant and refined; a navy, knee-length dress patterned with golden flowers blooming across the whole of my body. There were ruffles on the sleeves and the collar, and I thought it would be right at home at a gala advertised as a “business casual” affair. Oh, how naive I was.
The moment I stepped into the common room, I thought my cheeks had melted and fallen off my face. Congregating in a few, very colorful clumps, the girls of my dorm reminded me of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection— something to be admired, but never touched. At least, not in the hand-me-down dress hanging on my frame.
With a crack, I turned around and bolted out of the common room, scaling two flights of stairs in a storm of fabric and hair. Despite the crisp air, my cheeks still burned like coals.
As I raced down the 4th floor hallway, the homestretch, I passed by a familiar blond boy and screamed, “Kevin, tell them I’ll be down in five!”
I never stopped— just saw a thumbs-up in my periphery. A sign to keep running.
The moment I burst into my room, I threw myself against my closet, wrestling out the only good penny I had to my name. A dress the color of sangria, encrusted in thousands of tiny sequins that danced, even in the dim light of my room. She soaked up the spotlight better than any paid actress.
So, that’s how I got there, practically jumping into my dress, shoving my heels on, and wincing as I pushed a pair of earrings through the skin of my pierced ears. While they’d been closed due to a lack of use, the earrings’ head pins made fast work out of the skin that’d grown back. They stung— I hadn’t worn earrings since the last time I saw my boyfriend, Zach. And that was four months ago.
Eventually, after racing down two flights of stairs— in heels, mind you— I burst into the common room, hiding my frantic breaths. As I clicked and clacked around the room, I noticed a boy sitting on the couch with an oversized backpack— and not an ounce of formalwear. He sat on the couch casually, sporting a grey quarter-zip hoodie and black sneakers.
Prancing up to him, my mouth moved before my brain could react, “So… are you going to the formal?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He responded with a smirk, fully aware of his attire.
Embarrassed, I stumbled over my tongue, “Oh— well, I mean… Sorry, it’s just that you don’t seem dressed up like everyone else.”
After all, the other boys in the room were all wearing some form of suit-and-tie— someone was even showing off a three-piece.
“And why would that mean I’m not attending the formal?”
“Uhm…” My whole face turned a shade of red. He was still smiling, so I assumed it was all in good humor. But that didn’t stop my throat from constricting.
Despite my lack of an answer, he laughed, the way wind chimes sound at a beachside villa. Playful and happy. Innocent and clear.
“It’s alright— don’t worry about it! Anyways, I have a surprise in my backpack that’s way more interesting than my hoodie.”
“What is it? Can I guess?”
“Nope! Find me at the formal, and maybe you’ll find out…” He smirked, a glint of mischief in his eyes. I suppressed the urge to roll mine.
And yet, despite my embarrassment, I agreed to meet him again.
Dresses, dancing, party, people. Holding hands. Holding hips. Watch them sway. Silver platters full of food I can’t eat. Ballroom full of people I can’t meet.
Where is that boy, with the brown-green soul? Because everything at this party lives to distance itself. And you’re here, because everyone’s here. And I’m here to drink with my eyes and bleed from my teeth.
I turn a corner and I’m greeted with a tuft of bouncy, curly hair. Dark roast, no creamer.
The owner isn’t clear, just a column of dark fabric against the fuchsia lights. Loading my pistol, I take a shot in the dark.
“Crom?”
There he was, in the flesh. The quarter-zip hoodie and sneakers quickly became history, as he turned towards me. My heart jumped into my throat.
I’d mistaken him for an erudite.
And the longer I stared at his double-breasted suit, shiny dress shoes, and crisp collar, the more I realized how deeply wrong I was.
We went out for sushi. And we don’t eat sushi— but our friends do. So instead of filling our mouths with fish, we told each other stories until we were full.
Laughing while sipping on hot soup, it was easy to forget about our impending exams. We take pictures. You pull out a dozen popsicle sticks, each one a different color, and I pick two: one red, one black. And I say, “It’s me and you.”
The word friend fizzles to the tip of our tongues. It never exits our mouths, because it’s ingrained in our hearts.
It wasn’t long before I was single again— of my own volition. I’d broken things off with my boyfriend, now ex, well before Christmas. And of course, he cried. I said things like I’m sorry and you made such a difference in my life and I was lucky to know you and I know you’ll do great things. And he said, “Is Crom with you right now?”
I said no.
“Did you kiss Crom?”
I said no.
Twice, I only told the truth. But maybe I was missing something. Like giving credit where credit is due. For your brilliant idea: a big thank you.
