Adriana Che Ismail
ageing out
Three days my black hijab hung on the line before I could get rid of the smell. Something from the Warehouse, ostensibly fresh and aquatic, but really alcoholic. Each time a breeze passed, blood would rush in my ears and all of the rest of the world fell away dead and my tongue gummed up with all the plaque in my mouth. Noticeable to nobody but myself.
Summer came and I wore black down to my underwear, to soak up enough sunlight to carry me through to some time where twilight would pool, and winter would moor, and my grief at the betrayal would become a soft snowy field, sterile before the footprints and the slush. It helped, to think of myself as a battery, or a cell, some thing that kept it all running. And so I ran, ran, I ran. Fast enough I couldn’t see whatever passed by. I kept it running.
Before, I was a promising young buck and people were excited to see what life had planned for me. When they saw me they would say, I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us. Now when people see me they say, Don’t stop writing. They say, Pain ends so be patient. I didn’t know I was finished until they told me not to despair at being done.
There is a peace to being done. I walk to the fishmonger and buy a kilo of small warm water fish whose name I instantly forget. When I was small, my sister goaded me with a story about a boy choking to death in the night on a fishbone. It burns in the pan. As I eat, my tongue swills around the inside of my mouth, panning for pieces of rib and spine. I think, at least I didn’t choke.
I think, when my mother first held me in her arms, it was the hottest day of a record season. I cannot help but be exactly as I have been. I keep it running until winter ends. Summer comes. This is why I am alive.
Adriana Che Ismail is a poet and writer from New Plymouth and Malaysia. She is currently based in Wellington. She is not to be trifled with.