x-ed out / Oakley Marton

x-ed out

Oakley Marton

i am sitting in my childhood bedroom, but i still miss home.

i miss the sounds of my roommates tip-toeing around before

their early class. i remember

hearing the sound of hair being brushed that first day, from

my halfasleep state, just hearing the

noise like waves falling over me with my eyes still shut (some-

times it felt right to pretend that i

was unconscious, especially when hoping for a return trip, that

soft peek at morning before you s

ink back deeper in the covers), the sound grating in my ears &

the pressure raising with w

hatisthat whatisthat whatisthat & oh

& realizing

& recognizing

& remembering.

that sound i used to know so well, used to fear,

scream & dodge out of my mom’s arms

[deadname!!] just let me get those awful tangles out!

i guess i forgot.

i forgot between impulsive quarantine haircuts,

three late nights of sharp staccato clarity between the obscured

& indistinguishable months

wielding blue elementary school scissors in our upstairs bath-room,

first down to my elbows,

then cut to my shoulders,

at last up to my chin,

until professional clippers cut it all away.

& i can breathe a little bit more, even in my childhood bedroom.

i miss hearing my other roommate on the phone,

speaking in vietnamese to her mom, in quiet familiar tones,

her words easily blocked out in ignorance as the

other two of us page through papers & books, studying

domino effects, how long can your roommates study in

symmetry until you guiltily pick up a pencil how neat & well

made are their beds

before you start throwing your comforter haphazardly, like it’s

straight, like

you’re trying, how long does it take you to just check something

on your p

hone but lay on the bed for an hour instead, or to doodle in

the

margins & over friend’s willing hands & hide inside

notebooks & spill unsteady ink over your veins

she hangs up.

& looks over to the bed across from her

& they talk about their computer science class

& their exchanges softly inform me of another language i can’t

understand.

i miss my soft green comforter, i miss the blow-up narwhal

they let me place on the top of

their armoire, i miss the scattered origami she has on her desk,

that one slip that at least i’m not

always the messy one, those band posters littered with

fairylights and the love worn rabbit

stuffed animal propped on the window. that time on her birth-

day we played lift-the-balloon

between conversation & licked chocolate frosting off our fin-

gers like sweet winter melodies. I

miss overheating dorm rooms & overhearing snarky facetime conversations with her brother &

then, like a flash, the high, sugary voice she would dip into

when her dog was in view.

i miss having people who tell you “you need to get food,”

certain & steady & like clearly they are factual reasonable stem

majors, like they didn’t sit

awkwardly in the dining hall with me that first day, where i was

the one out of the three of us who

had to break out the lame icebreakers. & i was the one who got

the courage to open the window

to yell to the loud freshman to find somewhere else to talk at

midnight on a thursday.

(& they were the ones that helped me adjust my alarm sched-

ule so i had even a chance of

coming to class on time, who helped me find my phone when i

quite literally accidentally threw it a

way, who stayed within arms reach from orientation to movie

nights to mountain day hikes to finals.)

these are the people who watch you, even if they don’t mean

to. people who approximate

& calculate

& equivocate on your daily goings-on like sticking notes in a kid’s lunch box.

(a lot of the notes are just to pressure you into watching squid game.)

i feel back-to-the-beginning.

we went to school. we were there. (weren’t we there?)

we went through stages, from first day rapid tests to wasp-

filled social distanced picnics

to slowly opening up the dining room,

the oak room,

the beacon,

& tranquility.

(that one i don’t remember that berit calls the yellow room.)

the first time i saw a student sitting at an outer booth in the

open it was a revelation.

& now we tip the clocks back, with good reason, we will grab

takeout in cold hands & wipe

sleepy schmutz from our eyes during a 10 am zoom class, sink-

ing deeper into the sheets.

(even still.)

i still try to remember that first collection of sounds in the

morning,

it’s embarrassing now, to try to hold it your hand like bits of

cloud, like recalling a long-gone dream and coming up empty-handed.

all that’s left is the quiet, consistent fall of hair through the

brush, the pair of them tip-toeing on

creaky floors … and something else.

a short, intentional red X my roommate struck on the fall

calendar. i

t was only september but she was counting down the days to

reach home. when i am sitting in

my childhood bedroom i imagine her outline tracing over mine

& I reach out & do the same.