Earthworms
Things don’t go as planned. I step on an earthworm. My radiator makes a noise like a strained breath. My life is in my hands, I know it is. Now the familiar thought rises as the late night settles, and I think of her. I had poured my heart into her trick vase, not seeing the holes, not seeing how the love ran out like water. It wasn’t enough for the idea of her I wanted to hold. Even the smiling child, the shared bag of grapes, trumpets and vaccines, none of it is enough. Not enough for the dirty laundry, for bombs, for greed, for the one who won’t meet your eye or two party systems. It’s not enough for the simple fact that teeth don’t grow back when you need them most.
The soul, in its house, revolts against these things. It says, that’s enough. It says, sorrow will fill you up until it pours out the window, but it will not feed your body. It says what I tell myself it says, then finally, it whispers: tomorrow you need to wake up, and so you will. Or maybe you won’t. It’s out of my hands.
Thinking About the Wasp at the Open Mic
I am at an open mic and I don’t have a great seat, so I’m leaning forward to see— and someone is speaking at the mic, but I don’t remember what she is saying. Because in the room, there is a wasp, and people in the audience are looking all around for it and whispering about it— they are nervous about the wasp. And I remember thinking: “how can they worry about the wasp when someone is speaking at this open mic? She is sharing, and her hands are shaking.”
But I can’t remember what she was sharing; I was leaning to see her and I was thinking about the people talking about the wasp and not listening to her. I can file down these moments to the tension in my belt, the heat in the air or my dry mouth, and feel like that’s enough for who I am, and let that be all that matters about who I am. But I am also my thoughts about the wasp, my thoughts about the people focused on the wasp, and the crick in my neck from leaning to see the girl at the open mic. I am the fact that I can’t remember what the girl spoke about at the open mic— because I was thinking about the wasp; I was thinking about who I am.
Vivian Marko is a Junior at Sarah Lawrence who likes to do a whole lot of things. When she's not speed-walking across campus, you might find her scribbling down stories meant to be read aloud, or recording the sound of cicadas into her voice memos. Known to friends as Ian.