Breathe and Count Back from Ten

People talk about pain like it’s measurable. They’ll ask me to put it on a scale from one to ten. But I’ve been pushing it away so long it’s like my barometer’s broken. I don’t know if I can trust my mind. Or my body. I think part of me thinks I deserve it. Like I should endure it, because that would be the brave thing to do. To be strong.

I used to think strength was about proving all the things I could do, but maybe it’s also about voicing the things I can’t. Saying I don’t want this. For myself and my own body.

How can a person who’s cut you so deep come away completely unscathed?

Like the mermaids, I, too, was a hybrid creature with two halves that didn’t match. Until I first encountered them, I’d never considered that this could be beautiful.

I wished I could be underwater, where a simple twirl made all the hardness of the earth disappear.

People act surprised by what I can do and surprised by what I can’t, as if I’m supposed to exist in this narrow, static margin in between. But my body is a fluid thing. Sometimes it’s complicated and inconsistent, but it makes sense because it’s mine.

Maybe I was just used to it by then, this idea that pain is meant to be endured quietly.

If a star can die millions of years ago and still illuminate our bodies, then maybe nothing is final. Maybe the water we’re barely stirring is a mirror to the sky, and we’re just caught in their two reflections, being created over and over again.

And it’s weird, because even though I know she’s talking about mermaids and air and the magic of making them seem real, the way she said crutch makes me feel like needing one is a bad thing. Like maybe the “magic” isn’t just about believing in mermaids; it’s about believing people like me don’t exist. Like maybe admitting I’ve needed crutches dispels the myths we want to believe about people. That we’re not perfect. That our bodies have needs. That this doesn’t make us any less real. Any less human.

How I’ve never stuck up for myself the way my parents or Alex did, because the only time people have told me I’m strong is when I’ve pushed through pain, kept going, kept myself from causing them any trouble.

What happens when you can’t tell your desires from your fears because they live in the same place?

Here, it seems everyone gets to be whole but me. They get to be seen for who they are, not for what they aren’t. They get to be defined by the things they do instead of the things they don’t. Meanwhile, I get split into all these little pieces: Peruvian. Disabled. Immigrant. Fragmented as if I couldn’t possibly be everything all at once, and more.

It makes me sad for all of us, all our bodies made to feel less than for decades, for yet another reason that feels arbitrary.

Sometimes I feel like being bicultural means having to be perfect for two groups of people instead of simply being accepted as part of both.

Like maybe the "magic" isn't just about believing in mermaids; it's about believing peope like me don't exist, Like maybe admitting I've needed crutched dispels the myths we want to believe about people. That we're not perfect. That our bodies have needs. That this doesn't make us any less real. Any less human.

You are so a physical person...You're taking up space. You're made of all this matter. What more proof do you need than that?