Liniment

by Stacia Yearwood, 2011 Spring

I had the strangest notion that the fundamental difference between myself and everyone else was that half of me was made, not of organs, cells, and muscles, but of words. Premature, I thought language filled the void left by my forfeiting Time’s work. When a persistent restlessness haunted me I would start dreaming up things or cataloguing everything in sight to lists I’d compost at the back of my head and between my ears—the place where it pained me the most. I wanted to jump out of my skin and fly. To be as far away from those orange bottles and capsules that had to be washed down with hot water…. I don’t remember much of what really happened— my imagined places were much more real than the sunshine sitting on my face.