I dip into the body of a person absent, on the other side of the silver railing separating viewers from water, watching me. There, on the grass on the other side of the murky water, they look. The grass is empty, but I imagine them there scrutinizing my upper body, leaning over the railing, over the stream, over the fish. They are watching a girl with brown boots to her knees, a jean skirt with flowers embroidered on the pockets and a long-sleeved white shirt that is too big on her body, a body that I only know has been dissected and pulled apart, flesh moving through my fingers, flesh that I wished dissolved into elegant skin over bone. But the someone else peering over the pieces of my body, the girl leaning over the stream romantically, doesn’t know this. I wonder what they see. In my head, they see a girl trying to fit into the scene around her. Clothing planned for a picturesque scene at the park with the stream roaring and the ducks making up an image of normalcy in my head. They are judging, assessing quietly why this girl can’t just wear casual clothes to the park with her hair tied up and a smile on her face instead of this showy misery.
I don’t know why I get into those moods when I ideally become the book or the movie scene with an air of melancholy: cute brown boots, bird earrings, polka dot wallet and a flimsy dark blue purse. I get sad as if I am being watched and pondered over. Why is this girl sad? “Why are you sad?” I want them to ask. I want to answer with perfect honesty, but I will cut and edit the words, fluff up the wrong reasoning, shove away the right one and give an answer that makes me feel better about my life. All in all, I truly want someone beside me looking into the water, listening in silence.
My life started over again when his ended. I had to restart all the work I was doing inside myself. The insecurity, the anxiety, the constant worry and exhaustion that was always present but would peek out from hiding from time to time, like my cat when we have company over, came crashing down on me. My mind, limbs and heart fell across the floor, and I am now picking it all up three years later and trying to put it in the correct order.
I watch the ducks flip into the water, one earbud playing “Une Barque Sur L’océan,” the other stuck in my hair. It’s a beautiful song that makes you feel like you’re in Italy by a peach tree. I wish I could print out the sheet music and learn it on a dusty piano in a few hours, but it sounds too intricate, and I’d rather listen than recreate it. When you deal with all this change from grieving parts of you, the eager parts slip away and never feel like coming out, which leaves your piano strewn with dust and a somber etching into your face. I imagine ducking into the water, my legs poking out like a duck, half of me hidden with my eyes closed, my legs the only indication of my existence. I close my eyes and picture it, my hands moving through the water, scooping it up to let it go.
My phone rings. I pull out my earbuds and put the phone to my ear. For a second, I let myself believe it was him calling to tell me he’d be here to pick me up in a few minutes, here to stand beside me, listening in silence.
But he is gone, and all I have of him is this lake, these ducks, this park and these feelings of being a stranger living in my body.
