Yesterday Was A Lie
When I was little I got a bunch of glow in the dark stickers. It came with planets and stickers and a whole kit meant to mimic the stars in the night sky. I remember the flat cardboard box that it came in, and the excitement that the stickers brought me. The box is in the top of my closet, still filled with the planets and the instructions. I took the stickers out and, even at the age of seven, realized that they were special and would do special things. I plotted where to put them and spent that whole day thinking about it.
Eventually I settled on the bathroom. The stickers glowed in the dark and I couldn’t think of any room small enough for the stickers to make an impact. I started out with the toilet, plastering them with little yellow glow in the dark stickers. I stood on the toilet and started arranging them into patterns on the ceiling – fighting the urge to make them spell my name and trying to mimic the star patterns I glanced at in the instructions in the box in my closet. I stood on top of the sink and the edge of the bathtub, in order to spread them out as far as I possibly could.
That night I took a bath. I closed the door and turned the lights off and laid in the warm water and stared at the stars. I tried to picture what constellations I had assembled, trying to find pictures in the chaos I had created. Eventually I gave up and just stared at them, admiring them for what there were – replicas of the real thing.
As I got older, after a really rough exam or broken heart or lost opportunity, which I now realize were all apart of the same thing, I would cut off the lights and lay in the bathtub and stare at the remnants of my stars. Sometimes, when its late and I’ve just written a paper or lost an election or broken my own heart I will stand in the dingy showers at school and stare at the ceiling – wishing I could cut the lights off and watch the sky light up.
My brother eventually pealed the stars off the toilet, saying they were stupid and ugly. My sister made a habit of pulling off the ones I had put around the mirror whenever she brushed her hair – sort of a nervous habit. Eventually my mother had the shower replaced and the cheap plastic tub liner we had before, covered in my stickers, was taken out. Time would find me with stickers in my hair sometimes, the humidity having weakened the adhesive – fake stars falling around my head.
I ran a bath tonight, got undressed, and cut off the lights. My mother was quiet and Grace was at the movies with Sara and I just laid there – looking at the sporadic remnants of the stars still there.
I didn’t feel any better
