WHERE EVERYTHING HAS A TANGERINE BORDER — LILLIAN SICKLER
/some jellyfish live forever as long as nothing ever punctures them.
I learned this when I was fifteen. read it in a magazine while waiting for intake at Baystate Behavioral Health. I almost shared this fact with my mother who sat beside me, anxiously wringing her hands, but decided to keep it to myself.
she wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about jellyfish.
not unless they could’ve somehow gotten her teenage daughter to eat.
a year later, when V & I sprint from Mclean Hospital in broad daylight, ID bracelets still encircling our wrists, I think of jellyfish. I think of their organs floating in fluorescent goo. I think about what kind of teeth could possibly break their bodies open.
V came up with the initial plan to run away while I swung it into motion. I stole Belinda’s key card to unlock the east wing of the anorexic ward & then led V down the radiology stairwell to avoid both security checkpoints. a cakewalk, really.
outside, however, is unfamiliar territory. neither of us has left the hospital grounds in several months & running down Chestnut St. towards the big intersection by the river has the same effect as releasing a goldfish into the Atlantic Ocean.
still, as I grab V’s hand & tug us towards the train tracks, I remind myself that she will be my raft, & I hers. there’ll be no more pills. no more force-feeding. no more crying mothers.
we jog down the tracks until the muscles in my legs tighten & cramp. I haven’t moved this much in months & my legs aren’t used to supporting my weight. V slows her pace as I do, the skin on her face ashen & tight. bluish-green veins snake up her forearms like tangled seaweed.
“I wish a train would go by,” V whispers. “I love the sound trains make.”
thunder is a surge only someone falling in love could understand.
“if we walk far enough, we’ll find one,” I promise without meaning to.
she’s tired but beautiful & I know there are a million things I’ve never done before that I want to do with her. she is the cliff I’m dying to jump off—my arms outstretched. in retrospect, maybe my mother should’ve warned me about the dangers of first love instead of cigarette smoking.
we walk on as night tents the tracks like a speckled bedsheet. I feel hollow but brave as a knife. eventually, we stop at a gas station where we drink from a water fountain just outside the bathrooms.
V & I are in freefall tumble. I’ll pretend not to see the ground from miles away. everything beneath the 7-Eleven neon has a tangerine border. some jellyfish live forever.
V heads back towards the tracks & turns around to watch me follow her. I smile & she smiles back. all teeth.
my heart rolls out of my chest like a high-speed train, heavy & fast.
Lillian Sickler is a queer Chinese-American poet, writer, and birth doula currently living in the South. Her work can be found in magazines such as The Shade Journal, Crab Fat Magazine, Empty House Press, and Hobart, among others. She has a black cat named Junebug who is a Gemini-Cancer cusp.
