What My Loneliness Whispers Behind My Back
it says, see, I told you that Jewish girls with pretty hair don’t exist, that it was a bad idea to paint your bathroom that shade of blue. that ice cream should not really be bought in that flavor on a date. the loneliness whispers I told you, stop breaking windows trying to fit your body through them, and you almost coughed up blood on purpose, but don’t tell the doctor or your mother. they will find a reason to put you in a hospital, and the hospital walls will be gray. the loneliness says gray will remind you of that boy who gave you his sweatshirt at a bonfire at some Jewish camp late-night ritual thing and the crying will start all over again just when you were starting to watch the television. the therapist says to go to the happy place, and the doctor gives you a pill. you like the doctor better because it takes too long and too many crinkles of the forehead to go to the happy place. and the loneliness reminds you that momma said you always had a poor sense of direction and got lost just going to the store. you wound up in Coney Island once. remember that. and you didn’t want to get back on the right train to go home. because home feels like a pile of leaves next to a dead raccoon. you’re scared to touch the leaves because you will have to look at the raccoon. that’s what home is. too scary and too dead. to be beautiful.
Amalie Kwassman holds an MFA in Creative Writing and the Environment from Iowa State University. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Montana State University-Billings. Her work has been published in Ruminate, Salt Hill, the minnesota review, juked, and elsewhere.