Winner -- Junior Section
Latrobe High School
I stare up at the lights, enchanted. I’m a moth and they’re warm suns, remnants of a time before; when I wasn’t an imposter in my own body, when my only care was getting the best snacks for the week.
A voice jolts me down to Earth and I’m in the cereal aisle. Who knows how long I’d been standing there, nothing short of incapacitated by the LEDs.
The voice is asking if I’m alright, but I don’t hear, and my eyes are burning. There’s a lump in my throat because I’m an imposter again and they don’t see me. I don’t know why I came out here on such a bad dysphoria day, but it doesn’t matter. Am I even myself anymore? I dodge the voice’s questions and dart for the door.
* * *
My feet hit the unyielding concrete, over and over again. My breath comes in sharp bursts and all I’m aware of is the ground in front of me and the roaring in my ears and the tears falling from my face. I don’t notice the car that nearly crushes me or the voices yelling at me (not even yelling at me, but at the person I’m pretending to be, the person who should be inhabiting this body). A hysterical laugh bubbles up and spills out of me at the thought that they’re yelling at someone who isn’t here, someone who doesn’t exist. I didn't even last three minutes in the supermarket, didn't even manage to buy some chocolate. It’s so dumb. I’m so numb and so dead inside and my dark laughter is terrifying. God, I have to text Bat before something horrible happens.
* * *
The door slams closed behind me, and I’m finally safe in my bubble of ‘okay’. My breathing starts to slow down again.
What about the debt? I have to feel like myself. I find the number on my phone and book the surgery I’m still too poor to afford after four years of saving. But goddammit, I don’t want to die. Mostly. At least, not when I’m thinking clearly.
I need this.
I slide down the wall, into an irregular, exhausted sleep filled with voids and blaring lights.
* * *
The room is too cool and the air feels too clean, almost. Wrong. But I’m not complaining. I’m high on hope, if I’m being honest. The sharp tang of sanitiser’s been assaulting my nose the whole time, and giving me a weird sense of familiarity; a throwback to the years of COVID panic, the years of masks and protests and hysteria. But now it starts to soften as darkness covers the edges of my vision. The voices fade into indecipherable murmurs as the dark tugs me gently down into nothing.
* * *
The light pulls me back; back to reality, back to my life. It fills me up and I’m a sunbeam, nothing more than an extension of this world, not separate from any other living being. I’m a trembling blade of brilliant light.
I am so happy science exists right now.
I thank everyone I pass, the most wholeheartedly I ever have. They've probably saved my life. I know they’ll save others.
The sun fills me up even more, and I'm still a hopeful wavering beam when I get home.
I rip open the curtains; I want to keep that light inside of me. I grab some pillows and fairy lights, and put them in my closet. I quickly let Bat know what’s happened, then I sit there for a while, soaking it all in. Me, the light, the world - I absorb it. The painkillers are wearing off and I can feel it now. It hurts so much, but that pales in comparison to everything else, the agony is nothing next to my hope and my joy.
My phone lights up with a text - it’s Bat. I read it and grin.
AYO WHAT U DIDNT TELL ME BEFORE FR???? COMING OVER RN HOL UP
* * *
Bat bursts through the door, holding an unholy amount of food. “You look so good fam! Where do I put these? Want hot chocolate? I’ll make some, wait a sec.”
When I hear that, a flower pushes a little further through a crack in my concrete heart. I gather the bud in my hands for a little more courage, and finally turn towards the mirror I'd been too scared to look at for months.
And it's me. God, finally.
The flower blooms, and I cradle the joy. I notice I'm crying. When'd that happen?
“Bat?”
“Yeah?”
“I'm me!”
“I know that, fam. Who'd you think you were?”