i live within 4 walls that feel like 16; steadily closing in on me. cherry red with lavender flowers painted on them, they remind me of the days i bleed right onto the grass carpet that i pretend is real.
i was afraid once. i called you - i don't remember who you are anymore - and you told me to make a rainbow in the corner i have my favourite bean bag.
(i didn't want to tell you that rainbows don't have cherries and lavenders; they have the skies and the fires)
exile (noun). the state of being barred from one's native country. these walls don't look like exile (exile looks like chipping yellow wallpaper and a woman who sees through it); these walls look like a home that doesn't belong.
to me.
pride (noun). a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction; confidence and self-respect.
sometimes, i look like pride - with glittering eyeshadow for tear marks and purple eyeliner to hide the bags my eyes have become. my pride looks purple and white, with a hint of grey.
(the grey is in my eyes. i see the world in greys)
i am a noun. and if we look past the European constructs of language, i could be exile and i could be pride.
i could be who i am - isolated in my own mind, looking at lavender on the cherry red walls long enough that it starts to resemble my anxiety.
i could be the madwoman in the basement - with purple hair that hopes to seep into her skull enough to print images that haven't run out of coloured ink.
here's a thing - i am not proud in my isolation. but i am satisfied in my un-loneliness. the home of these 16 walls isn't mine; i am not here. but i can sometimes see myself reflected in a pool made of glitter tears on the grass carpet and it's all fine for six minutes.
when i look at pride, i see colours. rainbow emojis. flags and paints. people. hearts. footsteps.
i have few of these, for few moments at best. but my proud smiles don't have to look like you.
i called you again, still not knowing who you are. i performed my exile out to my 4 cherry red walls and your silence on the other end of the phone. you told me -
"we pride in being. if we cannot be, we die. like men."
it took me six days to understand it within the now heather purple images in my mind. on the sixth evening, at the brink of a lilac sky, i heard you again.
"die like men." but i cannot. my exile and pride cannot. i, with my purple and grey cannot; for women, don't die.
'noun.' won a special mention in Teen Belle's online competition, the Sappho Writing Competition (held throughout June 2020), sponsored by http://feministstickerclub.com