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-APRIL JOHNSON..🧘🏽♀️-
I was once happy,content, Sloshing around in my own private, primordial pool. Then one day, for reasons beyond my control, I was repeatedly crushed... over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother, Leslie. I put up a good fight, but I lost, for the first time, but not the last. I was born three days after 9/11.
My mom and dad spent two days in the hospital, holding me under the soft glow of the television, watching those towers fall over and over again, until the feelings of grief gave way to numbness. And then, without warning, a middle-class childhood in an American suburbs. "Thirteen... fourteen fifteen... sixteen.."I say counting the light boxes over my head
"What are you looking at, April?"my mom says "seventeenth.."I say still counting "April , look at me.."she says I look at her "one,two,three.."I say "what are you doing,April ?"she says n I start crying..."I'd say she's suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder..."the therapist says,It's not like I was physically abused... "attention deficit disorder..."she says
Or had a shortage of clean water... "..general anxiety disorder..."she continues,or was molested by a family member,"and possibly bipolar disorder,but she's a little young to tell"she says,so explain this shit to me... (flashback when I was about 11)"honey it's just the way your brain was hardwired. Plenty of great, intelligent, funny, interesting, and creative people have struggled with the same things you struggle with"my mom says
"Like who?"i say "Uh... Vincent Van Gogh,Sylvia Plath,oh and your favorite, Britney Spears."she says smiling I don't remember much between the ages of eight and 12. Just that the world moved fast and my brain moved slow "dose anybody have any idea of what a preposition might be?"the teacher says And every now and then, if I focused too closely on the way I breathed... I'd die. i then faint out of my chair
"Slow down, just breathe."she says while i layed on the floor n cameras were in my face until every second of every day, you find yourself trying to outrun your anxiety.(now) "You said the doctor was in our network. How could he suddenly be out of network?...i can't afford it."my mom says on the phone "Did you see that video of the beauty queen who got acid thrown on her face?"gia(my little sister) says
" Mm, what? No."i say laughing "It's pretty fucked up."she says "Hey, Mom, you got any bandages?"i say leaning against the counter "In my bathroom, under the sink."she says holdin the phone away frm her ear And at some point, you make a choice about who you are and what you want."Oh, my..."I say lookin at a picture of my mom n dad
"All right, Gia, let's roll."i say walkin out the bathroom wit my bag n sunglasses on "Why is the co-payment $300? Rue, did you eat breakfast!"My mom says while we walk out "What's with the sunglasses?"gia says smiling "What sunglasses?"i say n we both laugh I just showed up one day, without a map or a compass...
