The Danger of Living In Stories

A Life Lived in Stories

When you live too long in stories, your life becomes one. You see yourself in the pages that flash past, burning your fingers, and you look in the mirror and the round face that looks back at you belongs to a stranger.

You know how she becomes the alien, trapped in a world that hates her in the loneliness of the locker room, the asphalt playground, the classroom. She hears them and her father whispers that different is dead. She cannot hide what she is, and she never shakes the sense of isolation.

You know how she becomes the ex, ending the romance of their childhood, giving back the ring and walking away. Almost a decade later and she will hear herself blamed for all the ills of the man. She holds the memory of the thing that couldn't be in her hands like a star, always burning.

You know how she becomes the lost boy, that night when the snow is soaked with blood, and it's not make-believe, it's real. Her classmates will never grow up, will never even get out of science class, and she realizes that her prayers and the prayers of the crowd will not change the world.

You know how she becomes the television detective, tracing back into a time before herself for the roots of a bitter tree. She finds a new way of telling the story about blood welling up from the floorboards, about terror that grips a family in every generation. She watches coldly, wondering if she should go and speak up at the parole hearing for a 42-year old crime, since the dead have no voices. She wonders if she should have left the past stay buried.

You know how she becomes the witch, saying the things that no one wants to hear, living alone with her cats because she drowns in people all the time. At night when she closes her eyes the crowd is still seeking her, still asking for directions, still demanding her attention, never leaving her alone. She wonders what the mortgage payment is on a gingerbread cottage and what the insurance is like for a broomstick.