a poem by Leah Mensch 

It was cold, or at least I remember it being cold.

12 was cold, 95 was cold.  Everything was cold. My fleece jacket inflated as the summer breeze whizzed through my window, while normal people sat on the lawn, trying desperately to get one last, mediocre, suntan in.  

My alarm went off at nine.  I hadn’t known sleep paralysis until these past few months.  My legs, my arms, my hair floccules, everything felt heavy before I could even register that I was awake. 

Was I even really awake?

Breakfast isn’t part of my morning routine, it hasn’t been for quite some time now.  Rather, I spend those thirteen minutes staring into the mirror, deciding, hoping, that the reflection before me is different, smaller, than it was yesterday.  I make my bed in slow motion. Sheet, by sheet, by sheet. Tossing a wrapper into the garbage so it looks as if I ate, I make haste to the water fountain, drinking, and drinking, and drinking, until I am no longer hungry.  But that feeling never comes.  

Even tying my running shoes, something that used to excite me, is a burden. The air conditioning dial in my room is turned onto the “high” setting. Hoping my roommate won’t notice, I quickly turn the knob to the “off.”   

Time is different now.  I’m barely aware of the stairs, yet it feels like hours have passed by when I make it to the lobby.  The sun is shining, I am convulsing. People bustle past me, all getting on with their Saturday routines.  It’s funny how even when my world stopped, everyone else’s kept going. To some extent, we are all wrapped up in ourselves.  Perhaps that’s the reason nobody noticed the sunken girl sitting in a corner chair, waiting to meet her friend, but also, dying.

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