Wordsworth Magazine Autumn 2021

booting process. You call it that because, little by little, you get ready to rejoin the world. First you have to remember that you’re a human. It’s easy to forget, especially when you spend so much time distracting yourself. Then you have to make sure your head is attached to your neck, which is attached to your torso, which are attached to your limbs, and so on. The last thing you do, and the hardest, is turning your brain back on. Although it hurts to remember everything, you know you shouldn’t neglect your mind more than you already do.

You don’t know what scares you the most. Being able to remember everything at once, or forgetting it all.

You rise from behind the booth and leave a few dollars under your cup. Before you leave, you decide to run into the bathroom. It’s too bright and the air is sticky, but you hold your breath and go anyway.

As you’re washing your hands, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Your eyes are tired, with deep bags carved under them. Your skin is tanning, but there’s still an unhealthy dull that falls over it. Your smile lines (since when did you have those?) are the most noticeable feature. They look out of place. You smile at yourself just to see what they look like. It looks and feels wrong. You drop the smile, shut off the faucet, and turn away from the mirror.

Something on the wall catches your eye. You grab a paper towel and look for it. It seemed to be a bunch of writing… but where did it go…? There! On the corner of the stall door with the out of order sign.

We Miss You

There’s only one explanation. You know that. But you’re praying that it’s anything else.

You push the stall door open and your world explodes into a fire of emotion. It’s all bathroom graffiti, complete with drawings and expletives and lyrics, dedicated to ‘the people who we’ve lost’. A shrine, almost, in the only way the people understood. You see so many familiar faces and names. You see a cousin’s friend, a babysitter’s ex, and then, without 27