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“We must never neglect the patient’s own use of his symptoms.”-ALFRED ADLER

ASTRA ARMSTRONG - 4

CELIA REILLY - 6

NORA GUSHUE - 8

MONA SHARAF - 10

NORA GUSHUE - 14

MONA SHARAF - 15

ENANU GERIMA - 16

CELIA REILLY - 18

ENANU GERIMA - 20

ENANU GERIMA - 21

CELIA REILLY - 22

COVER ART: TEWABECH DAGOL

ROOM EIGHTEEN - ISSUE VIII

CONTENTS

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Homework

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ASTRA ARMSTRONG

I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME

I am often asked why it is that I cover half of my face with my hair. I do this because, like others, I am afraid of judgment, but also because I fear the power I might place in my past by continually retelling my history. I cover my left eye because of my “Strabismus.” My eye is damaged, the brain ignores the signals from the eye and a damaged vessel causes it to twitch. I am afraid of this eye, because I know how easy it is to attach labels such as ‘lazy’ or ‘funny looking’ and how direct we can be with our questions, and I don’t want to be constantly asked, “Why are you blinking so much?” I am ashamed of my eye. I want it to be perfect. I want to be able to underline it with mascara and attach lashes to it. Instead, I feel I have no other choice but to hide the eye. Glasses won't work and after several appointments with my consultant, Dr. Grissom, I have been told that surgery would only make the situation worse; if medical staff carried out laser surgery there is the risk that I’d be paralyzed in my left eye. I am scarred forever.

Every day I have to look at the eye in the mirror, and see not just the eye, but the memories behind it, a repository of pain and torture, each time I so much as glance at my reflection. It hurts to imagine that for the rest of my years, I’ll look at a distorted image of myself. I was 11 when I first lost my eyesight. The events of that day not only affected my eye, they also forced me to age. I came home from school and walked into our two-bedroom apartment on Division Avenue, Apt #4, N.E. I had walked into my bedroom and, as a neat freak, I noticed that someone had disturbed the sheets on my bed. I went downstairs towards the kitchen, thinking that we might have an intruder and I grabbed the knife that sat on the table. I moved towards the living room, and gasped at the sight of my mother on the floor, screaming, her boyfriend standing over her, holding a hot pot of grease above her head. He turned and saw me, but then carried on hitting her. I was struck by fear, my mother screamed for help. I looked at him then at her to make sure this wasn't a joke. I sat the knife down and ran at him, jumping onto his back and grabbing him by his neck. He turned and struck me. I ran to the phone and began to dial 911, but knowing that there was already an outstanding warrant for his arrest he turned his rage on me. I was struck multiple times before he threw me across the floor,

then he began to kick me across my face. I guess that wasn't good enough, because he then grabbed a pot and began to hit me across the head. My blood rushed down the side of my face and I remember trying not to cry and failing. I felt, in that moment, that this was the devil’s work, and that it was my time to go home with God. The pot continued to hit me on my face. My mother was down, screaming, she could not move. Thankfully, a neighbor heard our screaming and called the police, but even as they arrived and banged at our door, my mother’s boyfriend continued to beat us, as if possessed and determined to kill.

The police very quickly broke in, drew their weapons and urged him to stop. But he didn’t, he continued to hit me and then the shots were fired, they sounded like loud balloons popping, and a stampede. I would later learn that the police put ten bullets in him, ten wounds on the left side of his chest, close to where his heart was located. I remember those breaths he took as he lay on the floor and how I felt vengeance at the sight of him, sounding as though he’d been trapped in a airtight box that was eating up his oxygen. Breathe. Breathe faster. Breathe. He was still alive and the little white Jesus chain he wore was soaked in blood and I remember thinking how my mother and I weren't the only ones bleeding.

It took some time, an injunction and later a court case and imprisonment, for me to realize that my mother’s now ex-boyfriend could no longer hurt us. His name is Tyrone Jenkins and he is the reason why I am “scarred for life”. If I were to ever see him again within the next 25 years of his sentencing, I would tell him that I didn't want a battle, yet you declared war. If he was to see me now, that ‘little princess’ he called me is now grown. I am a queen, a queen of both my fear and my courage. I finally found the courage I needed to face my fears. I have my voice again and even though he has taken part of my vision, and within that, stirred some insecurities within me, I recognize the courage within it all, and how that courage, in spite of everything, cannot be removed. And my hope is that it runs in my blood.

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I remember seeing them on TV shows and movies. Whiney teenage girls who have nice families, friends, and lives. But they were never satisfied. They complained about every little thing. They cried over stupid shit, like not having a boyfriend, the color of their hair, or sometimes no damn reason at all. Sometimes they would just cry. And cry. And cry. Over absolutely nothing. That made me hate them. There were so many people in the world with real reasons to cry. But they wasted their tears on shit like the size of waists or boobs. I couldn’t think of anything more pointless to cry about. The media also made teenage girls look needy. They needed a boy’s approval to believe in their own beauty. They needed a boy for support, they needed a boy for protection. They needed a boy. That made me hate them even more. I never wanted to rely on anyone. Especially a dumbass teenage boy that took a whole damn movie to realize I “love” him. I couldn’t think of anything worse than depending on an idiot. In every movie I saw the girl would hate the way she looked. Her nose would be “too big”. Or her shoulders “too broad”. She was never satisfied with her appearance. That didn’t make me too upset. But I didn’t get it. Who said her nose was too big? Who was she comparing herself to? If she liked her nose, that should be the end of it. Why would she sit around caring what other people thought about how she looked? It was her body not theirs. The girls were always so timid and self-conscious. Something I just didn’t understand. I couldn’t think of anything worse than hating yourself because of how other people saw you.I was angry with the way television portrayed teenage girls. As emotional wrecks with nothing better to do besides cry all day about it. They looked weak. I made a promise to myself. I would not become that. The cliché self-conscious teen, crying over nothing and throwing herself at boys for two seconds of affection. I would see my friends turn into that. Even my siblings. But I would not drink the Kool-Aid and join the countless number of other teenage shallows. I would never be weak like them.But as time passes, I feel myself betray little Celia more and more. I get weaker each day and I hate it. I feel like I’ve given into the role

CELIA REILLY

FOOL’S GOLD

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the movies told me to play. The shallow things I used to scoff at become more and more important to me. I’m the full package; the pointless tears, need for attention, and my obsession with what others think of me is the cherry on top. I’ve literally become the thing I never wanted to be. Weak. And what bothers me the most, more than seeing my crush with another girl or having a bad hair day, is the fact that I actually care. I care about stupid teenage girl shit. I’ve tried to not care but I feel like I’ve been programmed to be as shallow as I am portrayed in the movies. The fact that it matters to me, that I care, makes me weak. That makes me hate myself. I can’t think of anything worse than being weak.

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Fitting in is outdated. I see a smiling, perky girl staring back at me from the poster on the staircase door. Her speech bubble saying “Hey! It’s okay to be different!” I know. I know it’s okay to be different. I’ve spent the last fifteen years basking in the fact that I’m okay because I’m different. Laying in my bed thinking of all the things that make me okay. All the things that make me special, unique, new, original, one-of-a-kind.

It dawned on me at age ten that not everyone wore clothes from the thrift store. When other girls got new things, they were actually new, they weren’t hand-me-downs. At twelve I realized most people didn’t have a disdain for pop music like I did. They would turn on the radio and contently bob their heads to the same five chords. At thirteen I dropped my baggy jeans and sweatshirt phase and wore dresses and tights. The attitude of my peers didn’t change. I still didn’t dress right. Not that I wanted to. I was fine with being different. I reveled in it. It’s how I identified myself; not like everyone else. In one instance my best friend literally burst out laughing when she saw me. My “Rufus Wainwright” t-shirt, high-waisted puffy skirt, green tights and yellow low-top Chucks didn’t look good next to her skinny jeans and graphic T. I didn’t mind, that was the least of my problems. I found other friends that liked the way I dressed and liked the same music I did. Some of my old friends grew with me, we grew into the same tastes. I became someone who might be considered “normal.”

Soon I was listening pop music and worrying about things that had never mattered to me. I worried what people thought of me, how I acted, how I dressed, what my grades were. My friends and I went to my room and would listen to music and talk about boys and bitch about other girls. I would scream and jump when I was excited, I would cry at romantic comedies. My siblings started to make fun of me for it. “Nora you’re so different from us,” “You’re the odd one out,” “You’re so normal.” Normal. What did that even mean? What did it mean for me? Different wasn’t something about me, it was me, my only identifier.

NORA GUSHUE

NORMAL IS THE NEW PERFECT

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If this was the 1950’s I would’ve been relieved. Finally I had found a place to fit in. But in 2013 being normal is less than appealing. Being different, being weird is rewarded, it’s valued. Having a talent or a unique take on the world is guaranteed a scholarship. Difference, standing out from the proverbial crowd, is completely and utterly desired. It is what people search for in themselves, the quality that makes them special, the quality that makes their lives indispensable.

Normality is an extension of perfection. Being a normal family, a normal person, a normal teenager, is to ascribe a quality or state that does not exist. In this way it almost mirrors perfection. We cannot take a hold of perfection and name examples of it, just as we cannot place “normal” in front of us. According to the Greek philosopher Plato, it is impossible to draw a perfect circle yet we continually label certain forms as being a “circle.” A perfect circle can’t be perceived “because definition they are sets of infinitely small poings,” so if the perfect circles aren’t real, what are we looking for? Perfection doesn’t exist. It is, like circles, an illusion. And in this same way, normality is a set of infinitely small points. We create notions of what we feel is the normal haircut, or say, the normal sneakers, but when we break these items down, we find infinitely small points, that say amongst conservatives, the crew cut is considered to aggressive, military, far from “normal,” or the Chucks sneakers being far from a standard amongst different subcultures. One makes decisions, consciously and unconsciously, about what to wear, how to carry oneself. There is no normal haircut, no normal shoes, or normal faces. A woman with shaggy hair carries a different connotation than one with long hair who brings a different connotation than one with shaggy hair or with curls, there is no style that does not put a woman in a category.2

Just like drawing a perfect circle can’t be done, being normal can’t be done. I can’t be normal, just like I can’t be perfect. I have things that make me stereotypical and I have things that make me weird and that’s okay. In the end, who cares if they stand out or not? They won’t be named perfect because perfect can’t be named at all. “Hey! It’s okay to be normal!”

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MONA SHARAF

WILLIE DIGGS

Stay with me on this: you are five years old and you return from school with an animal you made in art class. You say it’s a dog but it looks like something between horse and elephant. You give it to your parents and they look shocked. After an awkward moment of silence, they tell you “this is the most beautiful piece of work that I have ever seen in my life” and put it on the kitchen table for everyone to see, even though you know it is awful. Being tall as a girl is awful. I was ten years old and already 5 foot 5. I towered over everyone in my class. For years, people asked me if I played basketball. When I said no, they were disappointed. It was as if I was wasting my height. Succumbing to this kind of pressure, I started playing basketball. I thought because of my height, I would dominate the regular-sized kids. But I was very wrong. I had every defect that disabled me from playing any sports that even resembled basketball. I could jump a good centimeter with my toes still touching the ground. I had a hunch and a duck walk so I ran like a speed skater. And, instead of throwing the ball at the basket, I pegged it at the backboard causing it to bounce back to the other side of court. Even though I could easily step over the other players, most of the time when I received the ball, I passed it to the player furthest away from me or I dribbled and walked the ball. The toughest moment of my basketball career back then was when this girl accidentally elbowed me in the face and my nose bled.

By some miracle, I made the freshman team. It was the lowest team I could play on, but making a team was a big deal for me. That was the year I learned the meaning of bench warmer. Fifteen games, me and the eight other girls who rarely got to play were more like cheerleaders than basketball players. It was shortly after this that I started training with a man named Willie Diggs.

At 5 foot 6, Willie Diggs was the most insane man that I had ever met. I’m not quite sure why I was the only person that was not afraid of Willie. He’d stand centimeters away from me, yelling that I suck and that I’d never be half as good as anyone else on the team unless I tried ten times harder. The natural response was terror and tears, but I felt this sense of relief flood over me. Finally somebody cared about me. Finally somebody had the courage to tell me the truth. It was a truth that had been hidden by my parents for years,

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with them telling me how much I’d improved, how I still had time to grow into it. They praised me for ‘working my hardest’ and ‘improving so much’, but never once did they say I was ‘a good basketball player.’ Willie told me the truth, something that I’d known for years, but I still needed somebody to tell me.

I’m not sure if it was how tough Willie was or my own determination to be the best player on the team, but in eight months I became the basketball player that I had always wanted to be. Unfortunately, I was forced to quit because I changed schools, but those months taught me something that I will never forget: parents rarely tell kids the truth. By kid, I don’t mean just a five-year-old, but the span of your youth; from toddler until you leave home for college, you will be considered a kid. This means that for eighteen years, from the day you are born to the day you leave home, the bricks that build your life will be based on lies.

When I was a child, my mother used to say that her number one rule was ‘don’t lie.’ She made it seem as though even if I lied about something as small as the size of my shoe, the entire world would become this dark place and I’d die on the spot and be taken to a special area in the afterlife that is reserved for people who lie about their shoe size. In reality, I would be sent to my room for five minutes and I’d cry through the AC so my parents could hear me. I wonder why it was that she could lie if I couldn’t? In a way, I blamed my parents for how much I’d sucked. I thought, maybe if they had told me earlier, or if they hadn’t lied and said I was good, maybe I would have worked harder. Maybe I could have become a decent player. Even though I was young, I thought that truth would have made all the difference.

I like to think I am not a kid anymore. At sixteen, I can drive and I have a job that gives me $1 more than minimum wage. For the past two summers, I have been a counselor in training for a local camp. On my first day at a camp named Sportsters, a camp where participants played sports all day, we played a basketball game called Knock Out. Each person lines up and the front two people shoot until they make a basket. If the person behind you makes one before you, you’re out. Me, being the amazing basketball player I thought I was, and the fact that the hoop was six feet, was designated as one of the last two people. I didn’t want to beat the little kid Henry, who was very competitive, so I purposely kept missing the basket. He kept yelling, “You're not trying, I wanna beat

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you fair and square.” But I kept missing and saying, “Oh I am just awful at basketball,” or “Henry you’re so much better than me.” After roughly 10 minutes of this charade Henry finally made a basket. At that moment, I felt more excited than if I had actually won. I watched Henry cheer with his friends and make fun of me for being so awful at basketball.

I realized something: I was put in the same position that my parents had been in when I was ten. I assumed that just because he was so young, that he couldn't handle the truth. I thought that if I allowed myself to beat him, the loss would dissuade him from continuing basketball and perhaps develop a defeatist mentality. I realize this is not true. I realized that I, like my parents, lied because we think that the younger a person is, the weaker they are. We believe that the truth has the ability to ruin us. Willie Diggs has taught me that there are alternative approaches out there, and that some version of the truth might actually prove to be an accelerant, enabling us to catch fire at just the right time.

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Home,work

Lea was fourteen when, for the first time, a boy told her that he loved her. They were on the phone together. Only a few hours earlier she had told him that she “enjoyed spending time with him.” She hadn’t said anything about love. But that was more out of fear than how she actually felt. Even saying that she enjoyed spending time with him made her hands tremble. She couldn’t look him in the eye. He was nothing but gentle and sweet, yet in that moment her fear was stifling.

Sitting on the end of her bed she returned the words, “I…I...I love you too.” She spoke as quietly as she could with her sister was only a few feet away. Her breath grew heavy. She had stuttered out the “I,” and this surprised her. She had always been confident in her speech; she always had something to say. What did this boy do to her? Lea felt she was no longer herself. The boy had called her to talk about their “relationship” or lack thereof. He had said he was never good at talking to girls but this was a lie and Lea knew it. Girls would fall all over him. He made them feel special. He made her feel special. It was all a fourteen-year-old girl needed. But not love. She’d never heard him mention anything that heavy. But while the boy, who usually had a snarky remark or two in his armory, struggled to get out how he felt, Lea told him everything. It might’ve come from years of watching romantic comedies or maybe she was just really good with words but whatever she said sounded good. Good enough to wrench out an “I love you” from a boy who laughed at Romeo & Juliet. She was taken aback. Most of the two hours she’d spent with her ear pressed to the receiver had been silent. The occasional muffled groan and passing car were the only sounds that had disrupted them. On his part, the boy worried that he might mess things up. He worried that he might hurt her, that he might be the idiot that he always was. Nonetheless, he had seized the opportunity amidst the silence to say it. “Lea?”

“Yes?”“I love you” She had paused. “I…I...I love you too.”He went on to say how he thought that the word was thrown

around so much that people didn’t take it seriously, but he meant it. When they said goodnight Lea didn’t feel how she thought she would feel. She wasn’t giddy or happy or light hearted, she felt heavy, like an anvil had been placed on her back. It was all very unexpected.

NORA GUSHUE

FIRST “I LOVE YOU”

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MONA SHARAF

SHARAF

Sharaf.The sound of two languagesCombining, mixing in withThe soft scratching of a recordFinished but not removedFrom the record player.

Sharaf. A household Filled with womenLeaving one manTo defend himselfSaffron and Dill,Mint and TurmericBlending in the airInto a beautiful sensation But Sharaf does not exist.Sharaf is a fake disguiseTo help the naïve become More ignorant.To aid those in theirJudgmental ways

Sharahshahi does exist.An Iranian familyWith roots backHundreds of thousands of years.Sharafshahi isThe thick heat ofAn extra layer ofDark curly hair covering Our bodies,Along with a history.Covering our identitiesWhich have changed over the years,Though the change isn’t seen.Others’ eyes masked by theGoggles of judgment Placed on by the eldersOf judgment’s past.

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1. ‘Good touch, bad touch’ amused you at the easy age of five. So you ignored the silly games, and gave silly answers to foolish scenarios, because sexual harassment wasn't a reality in your world, just another sensitive topic that you actively tossed your hair at... Nothing in your world seems serious, because it all just reminds you of the old ladies from kindergarten trying to get everyone in the dim-lit room to go to sleep, spitting empty threats that fall at the feet of your pride. ‘Go to sleep or no snack for you,’ they would say, but you knew they didn’t have the authority; they didn’t have the power... And they knew that you, at three years old, knew. So they gave up trying to bullshit you. Less work for them. You became their favorite. Back then, it resulted in you always being placed as prefect, and receiving extra rations of Oreos.

And maybe this was how the seed was sown.

2. You believe everything is empty. Nothing carries its own weight, not even your own words. Syllables? - Merely sounds, just to get the right reaction out of the next liar. Everyone’s a liar in your world. Or so you believe... What’s weird is how, even with this mentality, you easily let people in, into the “safe” space, the modern day living room you never dare step foot into alone. This living room of yours, its alterations are custom made to fit standards that you think exist in the judgmental minds of others, and while guests linger there, you tip-toe back up to your room, where you cry yourself to sleep.

ENANU GERIMA

SELF-DIAGNOSIS

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3. Deep down you know you're a good person, yet you also know that beneath that, you're a horrible one, and then of course, right beneath that, you're a pushover. You like to sleep with the thought that you just might have layers, hopes of, just maybe, possibly, being special...rare.

Now when you call society out on its facade, you don't receive Oreos. You are ignored, and this angers you, or at least it would... had you been fortunate enough to be blessed with the ability to care.

It’s said to be normal. Not giving a shit about what’s really important because you're preoccupied with priorities that aren't going to make or break you. You smack away helping hands because you believe the ‘love’ that they venomously drip with, is just the icing that lies on top of a deeper pity. As you slump into a journey that you doubt will lead anywhere, you keep your head down, fearing that even a quick glimpse of the future will turn you to stone.

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You would think that being called the “Hunchback of Notre Dame” for the hundredth time would hurt less than the first. But it didn’t. In elementary school I was scrawny, awkward, and I wore a back brace. When I was eight-years-old I was diagnosed with juvenile scoliosis. My mom refused the surgery for it, so the other option was to give me a brace. The curve in my spine was already so large that the doctor said surgery was an option, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want this to turn into a bigger deal than it was already. The doctor explained that bracing was making a plastic case, or mold, that I needed to wear under my clothes. I would wear it a few years and when I finished growing the ordeal would be over. This sounded good to me. It sounded like a simple solution. But really it created more problems than it solved. I wanted to believe the brace made me special, unique. Instead, I was a target for kids that chose to tease others because they were insecure enough about who they were. I wore the brace every day for five years. It made me a social leper. The kids delivered blow after blow to my self-esteem. I was a freak; they knew it and they made sure I knew it too. I felt trapped. The brace felt more like a cage than anything else. After only a few months I was mentally exhausted. I hated explaining what the brace was to everyone I met. I hated my attempts to try and hide it under baggy clothes, and always without success because everyone still noticed. I hated the teasing, name calling, and straight up bullying. I hated the brace. I had so much hate for so many things, all of which were extensions of my hate towards the single thing strapped to my back. I thought my hate levels would overflow and I would explode. I woke up every morning feeling the same hatred for everything and everyone around me. But the thing I hated most of all was having to hide that hate with a fake smile and false optimism.During those five years I needed a great deal of emotional help. My friends would have to continue to remind me that I would not wear it forever, and that things would change. I wanted to believe them but I couldn’t. I felt hopeless. My parents would emphasis its significance, I needed the brace, it was ‘important to my health’.

CELIA REILLY

THE HUNCHBACK

Everyone told me ‘keep going’ or ‘it’ll be over soon’. I put on my false smile when they said this. But I didn’t believe them. The brace is gone but the memories aren’t. I remember the day of the diagnosis and my parents explaining juvenile scoliosis as best they could. I remember figuring out that I could not die from it and wondering why my parents were so worried. I go back to the day I got an x-ray, the day I realized just how bad it was, my spine was twisted, a sort of “C” shape. This is what scoliosis is. This is what the brace was there to correct. I miss it in a way. It was my shell, my suit of armor, and it was my cocoon. Sometimes, even though I don’t wear the brace anymore, I still see myself as a hunchback, a freak. But at other times I thank the bullies for thickening my skin. When kids insult me now all I can think is: ‘I’ve been called worse.’ The taunts helped make me who I am today and my friends and family helped me through those five years. Scoliosis is not just a spinal condition; it’s a mental challenge, a social obstacle. It is – was - the greatest obstacle that I had to face in my life.

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Invisibility wears many faces. Take, for instance, the girl who is seen, not for her personality, but instead for her hourglass shaped body. Minds so boggled with wrong intentions that her society fails to ask her name. Distracted by her bountiful breasts, no one bothers to ask her age. Yes she is sought…but not genuinely seen. So it becomes rather easy for her to fall for the ones who claim to really see her; they tell her jokes, while a part of her knows deep down that they can’t hear her laughter; they just hear the bells at their finish line as they steadily approach.

In the beginning, rather than accepting her early innocent form of invisibility, she tried her best to be noticed. Deceiving herself with her short tight skirts and revealing crop tops. No one at all saw her before this. She wore conservative loose fitting clothing, and her hair was worn in the puffy ponytail her mother would put together in the mornings. How can one have the ability to feel the ground beneath their feet, yet not be seen by others walking on the same concrete? Her body concealed, along with her “wild” roots she hadn’t known were attractive.

In middle school she noticed how all the guys would go after the funny looking girls. She never understood why she was so shielded from society, but not so shielded as to lose any understanding of the construct of beauty and ugliness. It was evident to her that none of these girls were Beauty’s poster child. So what was it that these girls had? She hoped that there was more to it, that they were generous people; she hoped it wasn’t a matter of something she was lacking. By high school she had made a pact with herself: she would be seen. She would no longer fly under the radar. One can’t say for sure if finding it necessary to be seen is where she went wrong, or if it was in fact how she portrayed herself in the effort to be seen. Eyes looking at her, but not through her, no one seemed to care for what was below her surface. Her new wardrobe would paste eyes upon her form, while her new attitude pasted filthy thoughts into the heads of the boys. One wonders if it’s possible to be seen, so noticed, that it becomes a form of invisibility itself. Surrounded by so many people, questions arise: who genuinely sees you and who is mildly aware of your presence…to be considered as yet another pawn in someone else’s game? It took her a while, but not long to realize that she was still invisible…but on new levels, in an entirely new realm. She continued to be who she wasn’t; the only flaw with her power was her inability to keep track of who she really was. She herself had forgotten what lay beneath her surface. So she just let go. Went with her image’s flow. Maybe invisibility just means to posses the ability of not caring...just the simple belief in the end approaching, regardless.

ENANU GERIMA

INVISIBILITY WEARS MANY FACES

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ENANU GERIMA

LUCY

The cold haunts her summers. The heat taunts her winters. Age creeps up each step of her spine/ She isn’t really sure if it’s reached the stem of her mind. There are mixed beliefs about whether she ought to be tempered by the tainted numbers routinely thrown at her. Everything seems to be approaching, close to confrontation. She puts her faith in peer pressure, and never figured that this could be something she would ever embrace. She worships the kid or old bastard that deliberately stumbled onto the first domino. The thin, wilted sheets along with the crabby pre-rolled flavors lie around her neck, but her wrists aren’t shackled, her ankles aren’t touched, rebels are never bound. Those smacked-ass boys, the senseis, are living proof; their own heads are inflated as they float through the clouds like a pro. It feels like only yesterday that had she played the homely antagonist. Then they bestowed belief upon her soul. The lit pearl, belonging to that of a goddess, swam through her lungs, reviving a happiness only familiar to her infant years. After finally acknowledging the beauty of her inner eyelids, she raises the pair to what must be happiness. Impure summers, and lonely winters instantly become distant memories. Genuine laughter tickling through every crevice of her spine. Confrontation far below her, swimming through rigged waters. Her faith, she believed, was to be the best faith. Her god, uprooted from the depths of purity, blessed her with the ability to fly. The concrete she slumbered on, beneath the clouds, symbolized a forgotten sacrifice, her reality.

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1.Are you adopted?Sure, my mom and I didn’t look exactly alike…Were you adopted?But neither did a lot of the kids in the class and their moms.Did your parents adopt you?Some kids had different hair color than their moms. (I had the same color hair as my mom)Some kids had different eye color than their moms. (I had the same eye color as my mom)Some kids had different skin color from their moms. (I had…different skin than my mom)Sure my mom was a bit darker than me.Did your mom adopt you?That didn’t mean I was adopted. 2.It still bothers me little kids saw a disconnect between me and my mom.I’m not adopted.I tried to find the disconnect for so long, until I realized there isn’t one.I wasn’t adopted.My mom and I get along very well.I don’t break the rules,She doesn’t have to yell at me for breaking the rules.We talk about hair and boys like “gal pals” wouldI echo her inappropriate noises when cute guys pass (noises that should make me uncomfortable, but don’t)She doesn’t tell me to forgive bullies; she says“Fuck them.”(Something I appreciate, although it may be part of the reason I find it hard to forgive now)I’m comfortable enough to tell her aboutBoysGossipFriendsProblemsAnd my feelings.No, they didn’t adopt me.I’m more like my mom than most people realize;More than I’ll ever admit.No; my mom didn’t adopt me.

CELIA REILLY

MOM

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ROOM 18 - ISSUE #8- JUNE 2013PRODUCED BY THE LITERARY MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

ROOM EIGHTEEN