Breaking
To this day,
I still hold the belief that
I started the Silly Bandz trend.
One day in fourth grade, or maybe fifth
I went to Five Below
Discovered rubber bands shaped like
Ducks and
Crowns and
Hot dogs and,
If you were lucky, a rare phoenix or unicorn
I wore them to school the next day
And my boyfriend stole half
And got us in trouble for playing in class.
I bought more
Because I liked showing them off
And the popular girls stole a few at a time
When I wasn’t looking
Until I had less than half
Of when I started.
A month later, I saw a newspaper article
About the “Silly Bandz Craze”
How they came out of nowhere
But were there to stay.
I’ve always wondered
How the bracelets got their shapes
And kept them
Through stretches and squeezes
And even breaks
It must have been something hot
Something heavy and demanding
That left no room for discussion
I have always been good at holding things together
When they need to be
With duct tape and safety pins and rubber bands
It’s not a fix, but a temporary solution
Turned permanent
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
We don’t see breaking
As already broken
And maybe it’s not
But it is the start
Of a snowball on the hill
Tipped over
By thought or by trip—it doesn’t matter
Once we get the ball rolling
And growing
On a hill we can’t see the bottom of
Stretch it out for long enough
And it’s not breaking anymore
It’s falling,
Becoming broken
With everything it has gathered along the way.
For years, my brain has believed
That I am going nowhere
But prison
Or hell
Or the streets
Or to a grad program that I don’t want to be in because the people are so pretentious and academic that I have to drop out before failing and amassing even more debt for a degree I’ll never get
I know this anxiety
Has shaped me into someone
My Silly Bandz self would not recognize
But the damage is done,
Hot and heavy and uncompromising
It has pressed me into a shape
I never wanted to be
Held me into this mold
I do not fit
I never was claustrophobic
Until I discovered the walls inside
Squeezing my heart until it pounds
Pressing my stomach into my lungs
So I can’t eat or breathe
Or escape