Work for It

by Talia Hibbert

Emotions are not allowed to rule my body and feelings are not allowed to affect my reality; it’s a game I like to play called Keeping My Shit Together. I try not to lose. Not in public, anyway.

“Hi,” I mouth, giving him a nod, knowing I should pull away and go back home and write. I’m no longer sure why I came here; my old tactics haven’t worked for over a year. Other peoples’ bodies are not my safe, exchangeable shells anymore. It isn’t too late to make a healthy choice, to head home without hurting myself, to pour meandering rubbish into my smallest journal, the one labelled with an F that I can’t admit stands for Feelings. Yes. That sounds wonderful—or maybe it sounds like weakness. Like I don’t want to test my battered boundaries again, because I’m afraid of the fallout.

All you can ever be is yourself, so try not to second-guess it.

What a load of rubbish. I don’t sulk; I brood. Like Batman.

Clearly, he has atrocious taste in humans. Although, his taste didn’t seem so atrocious when he was trying to taste me.

It’s so rare for him to smile at me, and he looks so beautiful, that I almost forget to be stern. Truthfully, I almost forget my fucking name.

I find myself asking the same question he did, curiosity nibbling at my insides like an excited puppy.

How is a man of such conspicuous size, a man with a gravitational pull like he’s the moon to my exceedingly reluctant tide, so good at disappearing? It’s as if he’s been militarily trained. It’s as if he’s a phantom who can shift through walls.

suddenly I feel raw, exposed, and separated from the world around me as if I’m underwater. Not in the usual, distant way. In an entirely new and disgraceful way that appears to be made completely of emotion.

drag myself forcibly from the depths of my irritation.

Perhaps being present is something I should value more, no matter what inconvenient emotions it might bring.

I am not unaffected, I am not distant and sparkling, I am not even sheer, safe ice. I suppose I’m human right now. I’m human out loud, in public, and I wonder why I’ve never done it before.

Emotions thrash around in my belly like the tentacles of some great fairy tale beast, fighting for dominance, for attention, but most of all fighting to break free. I don’t know how I ever ignored them before. I feel as if I’ve been rolled up tight in layers of plastic, the world insulated from the violence of my feelings, but now they all want out. Am I exhausted or alarmed or relieved that they’re strong enough to bother me at all?

For a moment, his eyes aren’t mirrors hiding worlds; they’re windows I could climb right through, if I just had the nerve.

My face bursts into flame. There are fire-breathing dragons living in my cheeks.

She claps her hands with a witchy little cackle that’s part giddy and part evil.