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Writer's pictureZanele Chisholm

And if I Could Swim like a Fish

I don't think I want to be like my parents anymore.


I mean,

I’ve went through

my entire life just sort of

mocking their existence,

competing to be

this more sufficient

version of the person they

created in their own

parents’ image

and it’s sort of like

I can never win because

they’re always changing and

just when I think I’ve caught up,

I’m no longer the person

I was trying to become.


And so I’m always just sort of lost wandering around for someone to follow and along the way I just, become nothing. And when they look at me there's so much disappointment because they know just like I know that they would do anything to be anyone but themselves because it’s not really who they even are. I mean it never was, I mean we don’t even get a chance. Not one single moment to find ourselves because as soon as we open our eyes the world blinds us and we enter this foggy haze of identity and you’re just, you’re never you anymore. And it’s like I don’t know anything anymore, I don't know the answers to all these questions that just sort of keep floating around in my head, and around in space I’m floating. Gravity has just sort of passed me by and there I go. Off into this dwarfed planet where I feel like nothing but I feel everything. And I can’t speak, but when I do the words that come out are just never enough, and there I go again. And once my toes touch the ground I just start running, running away and to somewhere, someone I’m just not sure want to be, but I can’t see any other options. And I run, and I run , and I run until just go back home, back to my life. Back into mediocrity because shit, someone has to be there. So yeah, I don’t know if I really wanna be anyone anymore.

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