After I Wake (12 page)

At last, it is time for me to take some noncandid photos. Chanelle and Alexandria are satisfied with their work, and I am thankful that they kept the makeup to a minimum.

I am guided to a room with white sheets draped over the furniture, and go to the middle of the room where there is a large desk with an old-fashioned typewriter on it, arranging myself on it the way Pete tells me to. I lie on the desk and put my head on the typewriter just as he tells me to. I lean my weight on the keys and the typewriter dings. I jump up a little in surprise as the people in the room laugh. I gingerly put my head back down. Pete rushes around adjusting lights, telling me not to move the whole time.

My muscles get sore fairly quickly, and I ask if I can move at all. Pete apologizes profusely and asks me to stay the way I am for a little while longer, but only a little while. I try to suppress my groans of discontentment, but I think one slips out. Whoever said modeling was easy is a liar, but it's definitely an interesting experience.

Finally, Pete is satisfied and gets ready for the final touch of the photo. He grabs bundles of typewriter paper and scatters them all over. Some are smooth and some are crumpled, but they catch in the air and float gently down. I am told to quickly close my eyes and smile dreamily. I comply, listening to the camera shutter click over and over while Pete dances about the room with the camera, capturing me at every angle possible. Despite how challenging it is, modeling is also kind of cool. My smile eases from something stiff and formal to something natural as I get comfortable.

About three minutes later, I am allowed to get up, while the team rushes in to thank me for doing the photo shoot and tell me how fun it was to work with me.

A new woman walks forward and introduces herself as Summer, the woman who is going to interview me. She looks like she could be a mother, but she's not my mother's age. Pete the photographer asks me to keep on my outfit and follows us with his camera.

We get situated in a stereotypical set of comfortable chairs, and the walls are lined with fake ferns that hide small lights that ignite the walls with measured bursts of brightness.

Summer informs me that the interview is being recorded, but only for her to listen to while she writes up the article. I nod agreement and we start. The interview is simple and arduous. Summer asks me questions that she has written down on a piece of paper, and I answer them, thinking long and hard about what I want to say. People are going to read these words and associate them with me, and that is a concept that worries me. I've always been fairly confident, but I feel different about this interview; I feel raw, exposed.

I feel a long-distance judgment of me just by poetry magazine readers, and the interview isn't even over.

However, the interview is a challenge as I try to formulate answers that fully, well, answer the questions being asked of me.

It goes a little something like the following, different types of questions in no particular order, one bouncing off the other, me just answering honestly.

Summer: Why do you love writing?

Me: I love writing because it's so raw and passionate. You can pour your feelings and dreams and ideas into characters and stories and make them do what you fear most. Writing is simply one of the most beautiful crafts on the planet, and I think that everyone has the ability to hone and fine-tune the craft to fit what they need. But that's just my opinion.

Summer: What do you think of creativity in today's youth?

Me: I think everyone has the capability to be a writer, to be creative at all in any way, but so many people would rather entertain themselves with what
is
rather than what
can
be, and honestly, it makes me sad, because I think everyone is creative and unique, and we could have so much more if people gave in to the creative side. Like, you can make it be, and that's the coolest thing. So, try to embrace it, I suppose. If something exists in your imagination, you can make it a reality. Ooh, that's pretty, you should quote me on that or something. That's, like, the coolest thing ever.

Summer: How do you think people embrace their creativity?

Me: I think creativity hides behind a mental wall of rationality. When that wall breaks, you embrace it. But really, only through imitation do we develop toward originality. I'm pretty sure that's a John Steinbeck quote, if not him, then definitely a prominent author, about the imitation and originality. But the ability is there, definitely.

Summer: Alrighty, moving on, who is the best poet you've ever read?

(A pause.)

Me: That's really tough to answer, because the way I see it, there are prominent people in every genre of creativity, but not really a certifiable best, because everyone is different and unique in their writing styles and should not and cannot be compared. My personal preference does not make them a best. If you're asking more of favorites, I have none. I just love poetry in general; it's a celebration of words and emotion. It's beauty.

(I do not mention the part about hating rhymes. I don't want that in a magazine.)

Summer: Now, we've noticed that you haven't been on any of the many social media sites you tend to frequent recently, and your blog is practically gathering dust. Can you tell us why you've been so inactive? How can your fans follow you?

Me: To put it simply, it was a precaution on my mom's part. But I don't mind it. I've been fairly busy making up a lot of schoolwork. (I pause) Wait, I have fans? That, like, actually follow me? And want to know what I'm doing?

Summer: Yes, of course you do! Now, do you think you'll get back out there?

Me: It's possible, I suppose.

Summer: I see. Have you been writing poems recently, then?

(Another pause as I bite my lip and breathe out slowly through my nose.)

Me: Since I lost my hand, no. I really struggled with myself as a person. To be plain, I couldn't write naturally anymore. I was left-handed, and I've been forced to change, to evolve, to survive but continue being me somehow. I really fought with myself on that. I wanted to go back to the way my life used to be, writing poems, enjoying myself, living life to the fullest. When reality knocked on the door, I couldn't accept it. I was essentially stripped of what I thought made me human. So without what seemed like everything, I kind of stopped caring about anything, and that included writing. I got caught in a slump that really only went down.

Summer: Are you comfortable discussing anything about your struggles with depression?

(I nod slowly.)

Me: I stopped caring about the most basic parts of being human. None of it seemed to matter anymore because I couldn't function like a regular human. Everything was harder. And when nothing matters, it's easier to give up. Then I would have long bouts of inability to feel emotion, and I dragged myself around like a corpse, trying to fake it, create a false sense of normality but completely failing. And when I did feel emotion, they were sudden flares that lasted moments before going away. Those were awful, it felt like a deep sorrow tinged with agony, and I can't even begin to describe the pain, and I would curl up and wait for them to end. I self-harmed, I'm covered in scars, just look at my arms, and my diet changed as I ate less, I lost weight, it was just awful.

(Summer interjects with a small oh! when I mention self-harm, and I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise before gesturing at my arms, lined with my brush with death and encircled by the tougher scar tissue. But she can see my arms, and I don't know why she's overreacting like this.)

Me: And then I hit my lowest, and I felt like there was nothing else for me here, like there was no way out except death. So I wrote a note and waited for the right time, because to me at that point, death was it. I could sleep forever and be free of everything. I wouldn't have to worry about feeling or not feeling, and I needed it. And maybe, just maybe, I thought I'd get my hand back. So I tried to slit my wrists. I got caught, and woke up in the hospital.

(I lean back while Summer scribbles furiously. Pete hovers, taking pictures; I suspect a few of them explore my arms. There are looks of sympathy on their faces, and I realize they don't get it. They're looking at me in the same way people at the hospital looked at me. Like they're watching a child.)

Me: You don't get it, do you?

Summer: Excuse me?

Me: The look on your face. You're looking at me like I'm a little kid or something. Do you know how it feels?

(Summer falters and simpers at this.)

Summer: Is there a way that you could describe how you felt for the readers? Are you saying you want them to know how it felt?

Me: I'm saying that it seems like people… I don't know.

Summer: People what?

Me: They don't know how depression feels, like, sometimes it just seems like they don't get it. But I know that's not true.

Summer: What is it like, then, Carter? So people can… get it.

Me: It's like being thrown into a pool against your will. It doesn't matter who you are. It gets you regardless of age or social standing or the color of your skin. But you feel like you've been thrown into a pool. And for a second, you totally don't mind. It's okay because you think you're just about to get out. It's a pool that's at a really nice and comfortable temperature. You're immediately adjusted to it. But you're under the water, fully clothed, and you're looking around, and it's like everything is slowed down. Time is slowed down under the water, and it's lazy, and there's an eerie sense of peace that kind of bothers you in the back of your mind. Like, you know something's wrong, but you can't quite bring yourself to figure it out because that requires effort, and you're almost, like, in a stasis or something, and you just can't figure it out.

And then you suddenly realize that you're drowning. You can't breathe and you're drowning in this pool, so you fight to the surface and it's really hard to get there. Something is holding you under the water and it doesn't want to let you go. And then when you break the surface and you take a deep breath, you think that you're okay. That you beat the pool that is depression. But you've surfaced in this new world. You're in some sort of world that's really close to the one you've known your entire life, but it's different. You find that you can't remember the little things, like how you like your eggs cooked or something. You can't because you were so focused on the pool and how warm and welcoming the pool was and how easy it was to slide in, and all of a sudden you're back in the pool because you got pulled back in. Essentially, you became the pool, and now you have to undo all of that.

So you fight to the surface again, and then you climb out, and you're dripping wet because you're out of the pool but it hasn't
left
you yet, and you can remember how the pool felt exactly because it was all that you knew while you were in it. And now that you're out, you realize that the pool became your personality and you're not really sure what to do about it, so you have to build a new one. Not build a new pool, a new personality. Don't build a new pool, though, that would be bad. You have to figure out who you were before you got thrown into the pool, and you have to go and make yourself a person you want to be. You have to make yourself stronger than the pool, and you tell people this and they don't get it because they've never been thrown in the pool. They tell you to get over it and that you're fine, but you're not because you were just drowning in a pool and nobody knows. They think you were swimming or floating in the pool or something and that you can just get up and towel yourself off and continue on your merry way and that you'll be fine, but you're not fine, you were fucking drowning and you don't know if you will ever be fine but you sure as hell hope so. The pool has affected you for the rest of your life and you are always going to remember it. You have to fight the pool every day because the pool will wait for you and you can get pulled back in anytime.

And then there are people who drown because they can't fight anymore, and I'm one of those people who thought they lost their fight with the pool and I let myself go and drown but someone else reached in and dragged me to the surface of the pool. And, right now, I think I'm out of the pool. I want to say that I'm free but you're never really free from the pool because it becomes so much a part of you that you're stuck with it. I don't want to be stuck with the pool but I know I'm going to be. I just don't want to fall back in. I've built a life for myself outside of the pool and that's how recovery is. Getting out of the pool and building something better than it.

(Here I pause for breath. There are tears in my eyes, and I am exhausted. My throat is beginning to hurt from all of the talking. I press on because I want them to know. I'm not even sure who them is, but they have to know.)

Me: I climbed out of the pool. I've healed, I've gained the weight back, I care again. But I still feel the pool. I can feel the water pulsing around my ankles, waiting to pull me back in and I'm fighting to stay out of the pool. Now I'm trying to figure out who I am, because I don't want the pool to define me in any way. I'm not the pool, I'm human. Well, in the barest sense of the word. I want to know what defines human, to be honest. What is it that makes me human in every sense of the word, or so they say? Or human in the barest sense. Summer, what do you think makes you human?

(I silently wonder to myself how Darwin perceived humans. Maybe change is a part of that. Summer just looks at me, her mouth hanging open in a small O of surprise.)

Summer: Carter….

Me: Yessum?

Summer: Carter, I do believe the interview is where I ask the questions. And in answer to yours, I don't know. Do you have any idea yourself what it is to be human?

Me: (internally) Rude. So very rude. I just ranted about depression, and she doesn't even care. Go figure.