Aaliyah Mae
16 Sep
16Sep

I was taking care of people before I even knew what that meant. 

My mother tells me I potty trained my immediate younger sister. I worked on speech with her, I taught her how to swim, I answered her dubious questions that she still has. And she’s 19 months younger than me. Meaning I was 1.5 when she was born. And 4 teaching and nurturing her. 

And who’s to say I didn’t enjoy the journey. I did. But I am the classic example of if I’m not taking care of someone in some capacity I am useless. Lead me to a trajectory of having a kid at 21 and seeking jobs that involved taking care of people. 

There’s a blindness in all of this. I find me talking about blindness in this entry and eyesight in the last hilarious, nonetheless here we are. 

I don’t lead my life with my eyes. With what I want. I am spotting everyone deadlifting their life. Roles such as those come natural to me. Before I even knew some words existed I felt the phenomenon of them. 

Autonomy. That word felt like a given. Having a choice. Even if that choice means being a dick. Even if that choice means stepping on someone else’s fingers. 

Are you the type of person who doesn’t find someone accidentally stepping on your foot painful? That’s who I am. I know the act of them catching my flesh and bones under the soles of their shoes was accidental. I was in the way, perhaps. The flow of their lives was disrupted by my presence there. I pay no mind to the stepping on my feet. 

But if that were to happen to a person with a crooked amygdala? World War IV would commence. I say IV because I reckon III is among us. 

Quite exhausting to feel like you want to take care of the world, knowing you cannot, and still trying to. 

I’ve been told numerous times that you can’t pour water from a cup that is empty: meaning that if you can’t take care of yourself, then you can’t take care of anyone else. But my cup doesn’t have water in it. 

It has soda. 

I say soda because of the carbonation. The carbonation, wavering in its rapidness, is my need to take care of people. If I am not doing a favor for someone, frankly anyone, then my soda is flat. The sudden movement of the soda can cause a bit of turmoil. I think that can sometimes be failure to recognize that I am painstakingly always putting someone before me. And the minute that I could possibly be distorted into this selfish figure, my carbonation is at its peak. The soda is spilling over the rim. 

And I’m gone. 

My flight troubles me. 

My home is mobile. 

I am comforted by such. When people talk about their children being their heart outside of their body, I feel seen and heard and fucking listened to. 

But my child isn’t the only piece of my heart outside of my body. It is in my sisters, my dad, my aunt, my grandma, my significant other, my fleeting coworkers (I love me some switching career action, again exhausting if you will).

My heart is separate and together at the same time. 

Just floating on this dumb ass big ball in the universe. 

It’s not that deep. 








[Image is of a person’s waist in an X-ray fashion. You can see their bones, a waist that’s presumably female as the body has a uterus but gender is a social construct and I promise I will fight you tooth and nail over that so try me. Their arms and rib cage are in the picture as well. The arms chipped away, looking like leaves. Their uterus has an egg in the middle, on the side of the uterus are feathers adorning it. My power is in my belly, in my uterus, in my ribcage, in my thighs. Unbearably human and all the same I don’t want to be. I want to be ethereal. These pictures bring me into that mentality even more. Beautiful art and I wish I could provide a link but I don’t own the copyrights to this photo, this photo is not mine. Okay thanks, I’m mad but existentially mad, and I hope you’re not. Peace out.] 

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