Trauma has a way of reincarnating at the most unexpected junctures. As though memories were equipped with their own mischievous volition, upon me they descend. A tricolor of clothes hangers drift lazily along the wooden pole. I finger garment after garment, searching for a forgivable yet incubating shirt. And then, I see it.
The translucent threadbare green, gray combination churns within me the hunted woman who nearly rolled into her grave submerged by those threads. I feel the remnants of her skeletal starvation incinerate my being as I step back from the wardrobe. Seemingly benevolent and appearing well-worn with what could ostensibly be love, the three-quartered sleeves shift almost imperceptibly within the now ominous emptiness of the closet. Empty as my organs were of nutrition; empty as the doctors’ neurons were of solutions; empty as the reserves of my existence were of time.
The annihilating anthropomorphism ascends the stairway of my spine. I am shoved through a corridor of remembrance, bamboozled by grotesque bones I wore on the outside, with shriveling organs seeking shelter protruding from my angles. That shirt, that haunting collaboration of matter was nearly the last thing to cradle me.
Nearly.
I close the closet. I select another shirt.
Els Van Laethem
In Between The Lines 