Youniform / by grace mcgrade

I don’t know where I left my leather jacket, or tooth necklace- though I speculate. I have historically been careless with the material, too nonchalant and sloppy. My head tilted sideways, always speculating some much more refined and important otherworld. My imagination always holding  much more colorful and interesting contours than so much I’ve seen on earth. I used to wear a Maroon school uniform, in London. A monogrammed blazer, tie, beret, pleated skirt, wool tights and mary janes. Every morning was a scavenger hunt, as I followed my own forgetful trail in circles around my parents apartment. I am half convinced that I had hid these things from myself. My hollywood problems still seem minuscule in comparison to this impressive morning dance I recited each morning, eager to play a game with my own subconscious.

My mind hasn’t been the same since you charged through it, stomped through it. Dirty, profound. Like a uniform i left somewhere, I cant help but feel as if this dance is by my own hand.  My neural pathways stretched to new and unfamiliar banks, my walks no longer solitary. Devastating. You scare me much more than I scare you.

 

In the past year I have died, been resurrected, been important and unimportant. Wanted identity and sworn I would give it up.I walked my pain through tundra, dessert and moor. Tried to stomp it out, block it out, sus it out. Sent out eviction notices from my headspace. Revised, demonized, excorisized.  Prayed. Did all the things, the cord cuts, the medicinal purges, was silent, held solitude. Docked like a ship with no sail. I thought if I cleaned myself from the inside out I could scrub clean vignettes of my world. Change the omnipresent by clearing my own blood.



I bent over backwards and recognized you, the restlessness, the thinning patience. The hunger to consume and understand every molecule in the room, motivated by sheer survival. Your shuffling, pacing. That indecisive lament as you attempt to reconstruct and reconfigure your wild. Dress up your wild in some tight outfit. Package it. Make it digestible and approachable. 

I don’t hurt because I feel bad for me, I hurt because I feel bad for you. We could have had midnight in the afternoon, disney and deep state dissected cartoons,  You could teach me to be cruel like you, to be cool like you. To adopt apathy like a sick guard dog and shut down on command. I would have taken your sickness and made it my own, but as I said, you don’t like seem to value wild things. And I am bad with uniforms.