The Point Of It All: A Short Supplication.
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What’s the point?
On the Yoga mat, my belly twisted over my thigh bone, my thigh bone burning like hell, my hands held in a prayer, shaking, sweating. My breath so loud the whole room can hear it: in, out, in, out.
Another rejection letter. Thank you very much for your time and effort; however, we regret to inform you…
Facebook. 489 friends. Less than her. More than him. Status updates crafted like flash fiction, all those tiny stories dipped in half-truths. Trolling through pictures of diamond rings, baby bumps, straight white teeth, girls who can’t possibly be that pretty. Instagram. Twitter. Tinder. Text messages.
An inbox full of tens of thousands of electronic messages. How my fingertips touch keyboards instead of skin. How I type instead of talk.
The last five years — well, almost anyway. Four years, eight months, and an odd number of days. Lust turned love turned work turned sour. Saying Hello when it has always only ended in Goodbye.
Those other four years that seem to have happened a lifetime ago, the ones that amounted to little more than a line on a curriculum vitae and a minimum payment loan remittance made on the first of every eternal month.
Grinning and bearing.
News from the Motherland. All the same names thrown into the same hat for the same race. The (tiny) collective human capacity to learn. The twelve years, or eight years, or four years it takes to forget what came before and to do it all over again.
Things I write most about: fathers, mothers, the wind, the weather.
Online literary journals — all the heaping horde of them! Blogs (mine and others’). Trying amongst people who use words so much better than I do.
The 1.7 kilometer walk made at 8:30 am. The 1.7 kilometer walk made at 5:00 pm. The 8.5 hours in between.
The difference between work, jobs, careers, callings.
Making babies.
Mascara.
Sleep.
What’s the point?
What’s the point?
WHAT IS THE POINT?
Oh, you silly question, how you appear over and over again, occasionally in ALL CAPS!
What ingredients have brewed you? Despondency? Bitter despair? Postmodern panic?
Or are you but a gentle narrative tugging at my curiosity? Coaxing: Wake up, little girl, you’re not little anymore. Come figure me out, this big wide world outside of yourself and in.
*****
MaiLynn Stormon-Trinh is a writer born in Nevada and living in Wellington, New Zealand. You can read more of her work at tigerbombtales.com.
{Wake Up}
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