Poppy by Alexandria Eby

Untitled by Austin Inman

Poppy

essay by Alexandria Eby

Once, as a little girl, my mom woke me with the news that I was skipping school for the day. She told me we were taking a field trip to the country, and to be in the car in five minutes. She was smart; she knew I wouldn't have time to ask questions. We followed along dirt roads and four-way stops, singing along to George Strait and counting the number of cows we passed along the way. It was fun, but I remember feeling anxiety in my stomach as I thought about the spelling test I was missing. I worried that my mom hadn’t bothered to call the school to excuse my absence. I wondered if I should have packed an overnight bag, and when we’d ever get around to eating breakfast. Every time my little forehead would wrinkle, and a look of concern would cross my face, my mom would turn the music up and roll the windows down. It went on like this for hours until we pulled up along a field of wildflowers.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, concerned that pulling over on the side of the road was illegal. The “no trespassing” sign seemed to be screaming at us. She put her arm around me. “This is your assignment,” she said proudly. I rolled my eyes. I had learned all about the wildflowers of our region in a science class years before. There was an entire project on it – one she didn’t bother to help me with. I had taken a bus across town to a botanical garden, where a saint of a woman used her lunch break to help me identify my samples. I’d gotten an A+ for my effort. “It’s important for you to run in this field until you feel free,” she stated. She looked at her watch and smiled at me. I didn’t understand. “Listen to your mother,” she prodded. A chronic rule follower, I obliged. At first, I was timid. I felt like I was being watched. The field was buzzing with the kind of bugs that swarm, bite, and annoy. I was still wearing the shorts I'd slept in, so my legs chafed against the edges of the grass. Sweat was already forming along my hairline and I felt itchy all over. But something changed as soon as I disappeared into the field. The flowers grew taller than my head. All I could see around and above me

was a mess of color and sky. Five minutes in, I felt hidden enough to start running. I ran between the rows of flowers, my arms stretched to the sides of me. When a breeze hit, I would stand still to cool my body and allow the flowers to brush my skin. I twirled slowly and the flowers seemed to sway along with me. I danced that way all afternoon. It was two days later when I learned that my field trip was the impulsive decision my mom made after another bad breakup. I sat in silence as her ex moved his things out of our house. I was supposed to watch him and make sure he didn’t steal anything, even though I knew he wasn’t the type. As he left, he shrugged at me and I shrugged back in return. He told me to remind her to pay the water bill. She told me to never rely on a man. “Remember the joy of the field when you think you need a man,” she said.

“Remember that you found that joy all on your own.” As irresponsible as her trip may have been, that day in the field did instill a lot of inspiration in me. Formerly an uptight, perfectionist, straight-A student, I transformed into a popular, artistic, straight-A student. I began writing poetry and kissing boys. I began getting published for writing poetry about kissing boys. True to my mother’ s advice, I didn’t rely on any one boy. In order to prevent myself from having feelings for one, I held hands with several. And I wasn’t interested in competing with girls for the boys’ attention, quite the opposite, really. Every boy I was interested in became my competition. I made sure I wasn’t just the smartest girl in the class; I had to be smarter than all the boys I kissed, too. My hard work paid off. I got accepted into a private high school, and since I couldn’t depend on my mom to pay the tuition, I entered a scholarship competition that required me to make my career choice at age 13: journalism. It was a natural choice, with the writing talent and all, and I knew it was something I could make a living doing (unlike majoring in English, as my English teacher had warned me). Just like that, my path to independence was set. My mom was ecstatic.

She’d continue to be proud of me throughout my high school and early college career. She kept every newspaper and magazine clipping when I got published. She

attended the awards ceremonies when I won and bought me beer when I lost. She’d nod approvingly when I’d bring a boy into my room on a Friday night, but looked disgusted if I’d bring him back over for dinner on a Sunday. As laidback as she was, she still had her rules. They paid off. In college, my ability to stay undistracted and out of serious relationships meant that I worked twice as hard as my closest competition. With more time to research, write, and edit, it wasn’t even close. I had every internship offer a journalism student dreams of. I was in New York for a publishing internship the summer of my junior year when I got the call. I’d been seeing a boy in the graphic design department of my job. It was a workplace fling that was born out of convenience but transformed into something much more. I knew when I began turning down drinks with other men that I was in trouble. I’d wait by the phone anticipating his call on the weekends. I’d walk by his desk hoping he’d ask me to lunch. In between my meetings, I’d make lists of interesting facts I could share with him. It all felt so urgent, like I needed him to know me and to love me. I had never wanted so badly to be loved. In between every word I typed seemed to be a space only he could fill. The night I received the call, I had carefully organized my apartment to seem interesting. I bought a few books he had casually mentioned during one of our coffee runs. I bought the wine I remembered him ordering at a restaurant a week before. I made sure I was perfectly waxed, moisturized, and manicured. The night fell right into place, and as he came inside me, he whispered “I love you” into my hair. I was floating peacefully to sleep in his arms when my phone rang. A weird thing happens when someone you love dies. The sun keeps rising and setting. Work keeps piling. People keep walking around sharing the most insignificant stories and laughing as if your entire world didn’t just shatter. When I got the call that my mom had died of a heart attack, I couldn’t move or breathe. I sat there in shock, afraid that if I let out the breath I’d been holding in my chest, my heart would drop into my stomach. The man I was convinced I loved only hours before came out of the bathroom smiling. He didn’t know the news I just received. He couldn’t see the tears streaming down my face in the dark. But because he smiled in the most painful moment of my life, I hated him. I screamed at him to leave my apartment. Since I couldn’t catch a flight back home until the next morning, I called up one of the men I’d been ignoring to soil my bed a second time that night. This one didn’t need to be told to leave. He went to grab his clothes right after his deed was done. When I returned to my mom’s car the day of our field trip, it was around dusk. I was sunburnt and chigger-bitten and beaming. She asked me if I was happy, and I nodded vigorously. “Can we take some home?” I asked. I wanted a token to remind me of our perfect day. We walked back into the field and picked dozens of flowers, and my mom taught me how to bundle them into a bouquet. I didn’t realize until years later that she should’ve taught me how to choose just one.

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