I am here.
Here is the southeast of China, Hunan province to be specific. Nestled away from the coast and inside a thin blanket, “福苗”, written on a small card on top. With nothing more than a name and the temporary plastic fence that signaled a construction zone to watch over me. In a way it also stood to signal that I was there. The fence wasn’t a permanent fixture, and I wouldn’t be either.
My birthday is March 14th. At least I think it is. My birth certificate says it’s March 14th, Pi Day if you want to get all fancy. But as I aged, I knew that the certificate can’t come close to my own age. In the case of abandoned Chinese babies, it’s the orphanage’s responsibility to estimate the birth date.
I should’ve had pie one year when the date still meant something. Maybe it still does. But maybe I’ll never know. At least the year seems accurate, 2005, the year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac. Although I wish it didn’t condemn me to being so angry.
I wish I could be more specific.
I wish I didn’t care about it.
I wish I wasn’t here.
❧
I am not here.
I am in the backseat while my best friends apologize over and over. It’s 6pm on March 14th, 2024, and they just learned it was my birthday five minutes ago. And only because we ran into some of our other friends, both of whom yelled happy birthday the second they saw me. My friends had been with me all day.
I should’ve cared more, but I could care less about them forgetting. Every year my birthday has been a mix of mundane or miserable moments. This year all I want is for the mundane. Yet as my phone goes off with two more paragraphs of texts saying the same thing I know it’s just going to be miserable.
I wish my friends would shut up about how sorry they are.
I wish my soon to be ex would leave me the hell alone.
I wish my birthday was over already.
❧
We are here → The Goldilocks Zone
The Goldilocks Zone is the zone of space away from a star that is neither too hot or too cold. Rather a zone that’s just right to produce liquid water.
❧
I am not here.
I am curled up on the floor next to my bed. I can’t sleep, instead seeking the comfort of the cool wooden floor of my room. My bed, with her yellow polka dot comforter and pale flower speckled pillow, is watching over me in my contemplation. The plush comfort holds nothing against the cold reality the floor offers me. Why don’t I feel real?
I’m barely eight but I’m already experiencing existential dread. What’s out there? What are we? Why am I something? What’s the point of everything? Is there a point? If there’s a point, why isn’t it all we think about? Is the point to live? Is the point to flounder constantly in the unknown?
I don’t like the unknown. I read the wiki for every show as I’m watching, and I avoid the mystery sections in bookstores. I like multiple choice and true or false questions because there is always a correct answer. I don’t like answering in my own words, because what if it’s wrong? Or what if it’s right when it shouldn’t be?
I do like gray. I think in black and white, yet I’m obsessed with the color gray. Gray overtakes my life in a hazy cloud that covers up everything else around it.
“How do you feel?” I feel gray.
“Do you feel?” Maybe.
❧
I am here.
I am half awake standing, swaying in the strobing lights at eleven in the morning. It’s a Sunday morning, and I’m spending it in overstimulation central. The lights are so bright I swear I can still see them with my eyes closed. The music is too loud, the voices are too many. I can feel the bass from the drum rattling through my bones. There are too many people around me, and I’m too far away from a wall. I can’t help but feel embarrassed at how many people are behind me.
Can they tell I’m the odd one out? I’m standing motionless in a sea of singing, dancing and rejoicing. Everyone’s eyes are forward, staring at the stage, their lips moving to repeat the words of praise and hymns. My eyes are drifting to the back, lips counting down the musician’s timer. As soon as it hits 0, I feel relieved, as the speaker takes the stage.
I can sit nicely and stare nicely at the stage for thirty more minutes. I can sit and smile nicely for fifteen minutes with the other girls after and talk about the message. I can guess the right words to make our group leaders smile nicely at me.
It isn’t until one of them pulls me aside after service one day that I know I’ve been found out. All that nice sitting, nice smiling, and nice guesses couldn’t overshadow the bad standing. Maybe I should’ve fought off the embarrassment, that trickling red flush that fills my face and makes my head burn. She wouldn’t have found out if I was more normal.
“Do you believe?” Maybe?
❧
We are here → Earth
Earth is the only planet to not be given a mythological reference. At the time of its naming, it wasn’t thought of as a planet. Instead we were something else. Earth comes directly from old English, meaning simply ground. We are the starting point, and the heavens above are the destination. I want to get the start over, I’m longing for the end.
❧
I am here:
I’m in the kitchen, straining on tiptoes to barely see into the mixing bowl correctly. The loud rhythmic sounds of the standing mixer hum in my ears as I scoop the raw ingredients in with perfect precision. This cake has to be perfect. It needs to deliver an important message. I scroll through Pinterest for good ideas to copy. I never was the best at cake decorating.
A gender reveal cake wasn’t something I thought I’d be making at fifteen, but you never know how life treats you. Maybe I should’ve gotten a shitty little balloon to go with the set up. The store only had “It’s a girl” ones, which wouldn’t do.
It’s only a few hours later where I revealed the cake to my parents, a splotchy black and white cake with “It’s a they!” written in sloppy purple piped frosting. A hesitant smile rests on my face as I explain it to them.
The joke doesn’t land. The smile fades. The writing is wiped off. The cake is eaten. We never speak of that birthday again.
❧
I am not here.
❧
I am curled up in my closet, hands gripping the offending hair that rests on my neck. The sensation alone makes me want to throw up. I want to claw the very skin off my back and tear my hair out until I’m a shell of who I’m supposed to be.
The hair. The height. The voice. The face. I can’t stand any of it some days. I know it’s stupid—some people would kill to look like me—but I’d rather kill myself than look like this. It’s a sick gift from god to waste something so pretty on me.
I should’ve been born with green eyes instead, given how jealous I am. How envious I am. How could I not be? Everything I wanted was just a letter away. A letter, a life, and an idealized dream away. Why couldn’t it be a Y instead of me asking why?
My hair grows long. I only laugh in giggles. I swipe the lipstick over my lips. I wear the skirt. I act the part, even if I long for the difference.
❧
We are not here → Saturn Diamond Storm
Saturn is a girl’s best friend. The distant gas giant produces lightning storms just like Earth, but the extreme pressure turns the residual graphite into diamonds. The diamonds it produces are the perfect size for a ring. Saturn is my favorite planet. Saturn is a girl’s planet.
Mars is my favorite planet. Named after the Roman god of war, Mars is a boy’s planet. Mars is a dusty planet with no glitter and glamorous rain. Mars is a boy’s planet. Mars is full of large volcanoes with their disastrous lava and explosive tendencies.
❧
I am here.
I am sitting on my sister’s floor, fingers intertwined with the fluffy white strands as she sneaks back into her room. After checking that our parents are finally asleep, she flashes me a grin before pulling out the bottles. Watermelon and lemonade flavored, I notice as she passes the paler bottles to her friends, and hands me the pink one.
The lemonade ones are better, she says, but I wouldn’t know the difference.
She’s right, since the sparkly pink liquid goes down just the same. It tastes like a red warm face, and a loose tongue. Watermelon tastes like normality. Gone are the twisting voices in my ears telling me silence and to keep a bland face. Instead I’m greeted with zero filter, and a loopy smile that makes my cheeks hurt.
At the end of the night I sneak back into my own room, but I skip my bed as I think of tomorrow. Instead I find myself curled over the toilet, my head dropped down, with more than a smile leaving me.
I hope my sister is right that lemonade is better. I hope the next time is better.
❧
I am not here.
My seat is empty at the dining-room table. I had abandoned the table under the guise of the bathroom as soon as it was socially acceptable. All it takes is two minutes, two fingers, two tear-smudged eyes, and I’m back downstairs washing dishes like nothing happened. Watching the food swirl down the white drain makes my mind feel fuzzy. It feels worse in this context. I wish it wasn’t the only context I knew.
I can still taste everything. I can still feel everything.
It’s been too long, is all I can think of one morning in the middle of summer. I can barely drag myself off of my bed to even attempt a walk downstairs. It’s a sad state of affairs when I do return with the plainest thing I could find in the house. I need something safe, my brain begs me.
It takes two hours to manage the courage and drive to shove the food down the pipe. It takes two minutes before it’s swirling down a second porcelain pipe. The rest of my energy can only be spent sobbing on the floor. Why can’t I be normal?
I can’t taste anything. I feel cold. I feel lightheaded. I feel so fucking hungry.
❧
We are not here → The Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper Belt is a doughnut shaped ring of frozen icy bodies far out in the Milky Way. Stretching past Neptune, the cold formation is believed to be the leftovers from the beginning of the solar systems. Sometimes I feel like I’m in that faraway freezing zone, surrounded by the leftovers. The belt name itself is a stretch, as it forms more of a thick doughnut-like disk than a thin belt. I wonder if the scale also likes to stretch.
❧
I am not here.
It’s five in the morning, I am preparing the pastry display, brewing tea and grinding coffee. It’s six in the morning. I am making polite small talk at the register. It’s seven in the morning, I am going to hang myself if I have one more frappé come through the ticket machine. It’s eight in the morning, I am going to smash my head into the wall in the back. It’s nine in the morning, I am blissfully at peace as I smear cream cheese onto an everything bagel. The first bite makes me believe I’m just a customer for a moment. It’s ten in the morning, I am tossing out the leftover morning drinks that never got picked up. It’s eleven in the morning, I am head first inside a fridge as I scrub dried whipped cream and coffee stains out of the plastic interior. It’s twelve o’clock, I am going to go crazy if the fucking machine burns me one more time when I’m making a drink. It’s one o’clock, I am driving towards my house, and then I am passing my house.
It’s two o’clock, I am standing in the small corner behind the fridge tying my apron back on. It’s three o’clock, I am so incredibly bored as I flick folded receipts at my coworker. It’s four o’clock, I am explaining to the eleventh group of girls that we are out of strawberry acai base, so I can’t make them a strawberry lemonade refresher. They ask for a pink drink. I’m going to slam the ice lid on my head. It’s five o’clock, I am shivering all the anger out as I dig through the massive walk-in freezer for my hoard of pastries. It’s six o’clock, I am sitting on a tiny stool, shoved in the back corner trying to enjoy the fifteen minutes of freedom. It’s seven o’clock, I am officially so bored I am praying for a customer. It’s eight o’clock, I am no longer going crazy.
It’s nine o’clock, I am finally home.
❧
I am here.
It’s nine o’clock. And it’s a countdown to eleven o’clock. Plain black shirt, jeans, apron, and hat are stacked on my dresser. Energy drink and shoes are sitting on the floor below it. I speedrun, showering and changing into pajamas before I’m diving into bed for the best part of the day.
I’m almost giddy as I fumble for the remote, and with a rapid smash of buttons I open Spotify. The bright glow from my TV greets me, as the comforting sounds fill my ears. My eyes drift shut until the next day, to do it all over again.
❧
We are here→ Sending Laika into space
Laika was the first living creature to orbit the earth. Laika the dog died in space, inside the small body of Sputnik 2. Her small size and calm behavior stuck inside a stray dog led her to a blazing death. In a panicked and burning mess she died, just five hours away from her home.
Laika’s name was derived from Лаять, the Russian word for bark. She wasn’t named out of love, but for what all she could do. That note should’ve read 哭苗.
Caroline DeFelice is a senior at Berry College in Rome, GA, and is finishing up a Creative Writing degree. Their poems and photography have been published in Ramifications: Art and Literary Magazine. Aside from writing, she also enjoys listening to music and playing puzzle games in her free time.
