ALMOST 18/THEY ASK ME TO DESCRIBE MYSELF

SPOKEN WORD BY JEANNE OZKAN

I am sitting in class, it is the first day of a new year, and the teacher has asked me to describe myself in one sentence. I want to say,

I am at once the host and the parasite. I have carved myself out of extremes and with careful precision. I am the owl hole in the drawing of a tree, and I am the tire swing, and I am the tree itself. I am waiting for the part where I die, and I am waiting for this place to feel like home. And I am waiting to get bored of the people I love. I am made of violence and guilt. I am logic, but the kind of logic that’s hard to conceptualize. I am a scattering of… something—bones probably. I am dubious morals and mental illness and platonic love. I am you and you are me, and I am being born. I am being reborn. I am dying. I am dying, I am dying! Someone help, I am dying!

Instead, “I’m a little bit obsessed with fictional characters.”

I am at my first interview ever. It is for a food service job. I am 16, the interviewer is 19 and beautiful. She asks me to describe what kind of person I am.

I like to drive but I can’t afford gas. I like to cook but I can’t afford groceries. I am in anguish that I am putting out fires…that I may or may not have started. I am street parking and city pigeons. I am the rising sun. And I am the daughter too. I am the coward and I am the man made of flies. I am scared of what I can achieve with these hands I inherited from my father. And I am not my father’s daughter. And I am lying. I am lying right now. I am lying!

“I foster cats.” the daughter of my mother, and I am the son and “the people.” I am Mecca and Jersulam and the cross. I am scream-singing in my car. I am doing parkour in my room because I can’t see the floor anymore. I am the quadratic formula and I am the square root of pi. The color of my personhood is dulling and weak and one of those colors only shrimp can see. I am a child and I am almost 18. I am not ready. I’m not ready! Wait, stop! Don’t leave me behind!

I am writing my college application essay. I’ve been asked to describe why I would be a good fit for their university.

I type, “I have 100 hours of community service.”

They ask me to desribe myself, and I do not say that I am happy.