Finding Euphoria Rowen De Lacy

Euphoria is found in words. The ‘sir, uh, ma’am, sir, uh …’ or the declaration of a knee-high child after a long, calculating look that ‘This person is getting on the tram too’. It’s in the dark places when ‘the gentleman in the back seat needs a swab’ or ‘the gentleman in bed five …’ or ‘he’s finished with the IV’. It’s even in the insults where it shouldn’t live, and the linger of a hissed ‘faggot’ will follow you for days, filling you with an unexpected urge to laugh, because he’s right! You are!

Euphoria is in the confused looks, scanning you up and down, meeting your eyes, desperate for a hint you will not give. It’s the smiles at your badge. It’s the knowing looks on the bus, the tram, the train. Those ‘I see you, I know you, I am you’ looks. It’s in the relief on a face that for once won’t need to explain why their ID doesn’t match.

Euphoria is in button-up shirts and trashy bowling alley carpet prints. It’s in turquoise nail polish, purple eyeliner, bright red lips. It’s the dress that finally fits, albeit that your chest is held so tight you cannot breathe. It’s the hoodies that shelter you on the bad days, the jumpers you wear on the good, and the worn, familiar jacket that’s stitched all over with your thoughts.

Euphoria is in the typed word that is so powerful, that gives you so much joy it hurts more than you ever thought a word could, because you’ve never known what it meant to be alive until this moment, and being birthed into existence makes you feel so raw you beg him to delete the message.

Euphoria is in the days where the good outweighs the bad. Your shoulders are a little wider. Your muscles are a little stronger. Your gait is a little faster. And there’s hair on your toes, your legs, the backs of your thighs, your stomach, your chest, your arms. A moustache fills itself in day by day, and you don’t hate it the way you expected to. The dark hairs you don’t want on your chin still make you giddy with excitement—a child on their birthday—and the new ritual of a cutthroat blade and soft, scented soap is worth every one. You even find it in the acne.

Euphoria comes in a little glass vial with a 21-gauge needle. It’s a stab into your thigh and a dull ache that always lingers. It’s in the new name on the box, on your card, on their lips. The shout of it in a waiting room. The promise of a scalpel and a remaking of flesh.

Euphoria is in every new day, and it has no plans to leave.

RUN BY STUDENTS, FOR STUDENTS