Gilded cages

It’s paradise but you can’t get out of it. And anything that you can’t get out of is hell. 
//Margaret Atwood

---

“That’s the final challenge?” Bennett asked, eyes squinted in confusion and brow furrowed.

The doctor nodded. “Of course. The last challenge is meant to be the hardest one of all.”

“But it’s – it’s beautiful. And – well -” Bennett spluttered. “I just didn’t realize that naming it Eden wasn’t a move of irony on your part.”

The doctor quirked his eyebrow. “That would’ve been rather cruel, don’t you think?”

Bennett huffed in disbelief. “Not any crueler than any of the other levels that we’ve put them through.”

The doctor seemed not to hear and turned to face the monitors that were tracking all of the candidates. Many looked dazed with happiness. Some were napping on the soft green grass, others swimming in the eye achingly blue waters. Almost all had laid down their weapons. He stopped and tapped thoughtfully at the figure of one candidate far from the others, glaring at the barely perceptible force field in front of her, hands gripped tightly around her weapon. “It is perfection, of course. But it’s still a prison. And anyone that would choose pretty lies over grim truth is not anyone we need on our side.”

He turned and faced the much younger Bennett. “Our enemy are masters of using our own sense of optimism and complacency against us. An illusion, even one of happiness and perfection, is still deadly. These candidates must learn that or else they have no use to us.”

He laid the manila folder in his hands on the desk. “Give them one day, then begin releasing Toxin 7 into the air. If they haven’t found a way out by day 4, they never will.”

Bennett looked up at him in barely contained shock. “But what if none of them find the way out?” He motioned to the wall of monitors. “They don’t really look that motivated. The whole challenge could be a waste!”

The doctor smiled and pushed a few buttons on the panel in front of him, focusing on 6 or 7 individuals who were cautiously prowling the woods and open clearings. “Don’t worry. I have faith in our candidates. Not all of them are fooled by their gilded cage.”

And with a quirk of his eyebrow, he turned and left the room.

 

 

Haunted

In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves, and sometimes we do such a good job, we lose track of reality.
//Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls 

---

After the end of the world, all anyone wants to talk about is the past.

She can’t blame them really. The future is such a tenuous, muddy concept and the present is dreary and tedious all at the same time; the past is safe. Comforting.

And terrible, of course.

Because every story is essentially the same – a sad sort of apocalypse themed mad libs, except that she can generally fill in all the blanks:

You had loved ones. It didn’t matter if you thought you had few or many – once the plague hit the only thing that really stuck out to you was the fact that you realized that you cared about far more people than you initially thought. Each time someone got sick you hoped that it wouldn’t take them – that somehow, they would recover. It never worked out that way. You thought you’d get used to it, after a while, but each death was harder to take – perhaps because it meant you were closer to being alone. After you’d stood vigil for your last loved one, you laid down or curled up in fetal position or smashed your fist into every hard surface you could find, screaming, praying, hoping that it would finally take you, too. Obviously that didn’t happen, because here you are, telling your story. Because, of course, eventually you mustered up all of your inner strength and forced yourself out of bed, or away from the bottle, or through the haze of sadness and realized that you couldn’t possibly be the only one left alive and began looking for other survivors.

At this point of the story, they’ll look up at her, hopeful and expectant. She will murmur some comforting words and tell them how brave they’ve been. She will  say that they are safe, now, and won’t have to worry about being alone. Then she’llsend them on their way, to whatever cleared out home space they’ve been assigned to, with a kind word and a gentle reminder that they should come to her if they have any questions or issues.

Some stay, integrate, take to the new living arrangements – more cramped, more manual labor, but filled with the laughter of children and the promise of tomorrow. But others – others only flit about, filled with nervous, anxious energy. She sees them do double-takes to people they pass on the streets, watches as they catch themselves before accidentally calling strangers by the names of long-dead loved ones. Their movements are listless and lank. They’re tethered to the past, even though the past is dust-filled agony. She knows that these ones will not stay – they will go on from this place, continuing to tell their stories to other strangers they meet and leave, to God above, to themselves – fighting to keep the past with them. She always feels sadness when she sees them leave, in the dead of night or furtively during mealtimes. In her mind, she tells herself that perhaps they will find what they’re looking for elsewhere beyond this place; in her heart she knows they will not. They are chasing ghosts of what could’ve been, what might’ve happened, how they feel their stories should’ve ended. They are haunted by their own memories – and comforted by them, too. And because of this, they will never leave them and will never be able to march towards the future.

 

Love letter.

I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.
//Ernest Hemingway

---

I always wanted you to
write me a love letter.
But, I guess I’ll have to settle
with you telling me just how
much you once loved me
and how
now
you love her better.

And hey, I promise I’m not bitter.
Cuz, honestly, I bet her
smile it never slips –
Like mine always used to
when you told me what you wished:
that I was more assertive,
picture perfect
image of a girl,
who could motivate
and compensate
for what you never were.

I thought you needed space and time
to make it all okay;
turns out you needed shame and lies
to help you get away.
And now I hear
Your earnest words
asking me to be honest.
And I’m so kind I won’t bring up
the monster that sprang up among us.

Well here’s some of that honesty
that you claim to love so much:
In your hands I realized that honesty
was just another word –
for hurting one another,
just another way to burn.
Cuz honesty, it honestly
was just another way
to excuse just another
of your
honest mistakes.

Your happily ever after.

You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
//Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum 

---

Imagine this: you are a fair maiden, slight and pure –
trapped high in the tower.
The guards are stiff, their faces hidden by fearsome masks.
Perhaps you could jump, true
But the dragon outside will surely kill you –
that is, if the 300 foot fall doesn’t first.
The guards, though, are only human and
you weep so bitterly and beautifully.
One of them breaks his oath to hear your heart breaking so and –
throws off his mask and carries you away
through wretched tunnels and under the burning dragon.
And, of course, you live happily ever after –
your shining hair a match for his shining redemption arc.

If that’s not quite your style, think of this:
you are lost, deep in the forest with night closing in around you.
The trees are thick and the air is stifling and –
oh, are those red eyes peering at you through the brush,
drawn to your scent of desperation and fear?
But oh, here comes gallant knight  to your rescue, just in time.
You can’t help but swoon as he beats back the snarling creatures and
whisk you upon his horse.
You will always recall the way he leaps out, sword blazing and –
oh, that darkness, or that monster, neither one, really
ever stood a chance.
So, yes, of course there is a happily ever after;
his gallantry never fails to make your heart skip a beat.

But perhaps the thought of being a damsel in distress makes you cringe
and, maybe, just the sound of that self important prince
or that self-righteous vagrant makes you want to retch.

So instead you are: a maiden, but more ruddy than fair and –
the pureness is rather debatable.
You smile wickedly every time you see the guards because you know beneath their masks
are deep cuts, flaming and red, courtesy of your repeated scuffles at mealtime.
You leap out of the window when the dragon’s back is turned,
grab onto its neck and try a trick your grandmother always said:
scratch the dragon behind its scaly ears and now –
now it’s pliant in your hands, completely in your control.
You take that dragon high into the air as it burns the tower into the ground
and laugh into the wind as you ride back to your self made happily ever after.

Or else, the darkness of the forest doesn’t faze you and –
when the monster leaps out at you, the snarl becomes a squeal
as you slit its underside with the knife you always have hidden in your boot.
You track down a troll or some other fearsome creature,
demand to know the way out on the strength of your voice alone.
And, when that doesn’t work, you shrug and turn away –
scale a tree and check your compass, chart a path out of the gloom.
As you emerge you hear the thunder of hoofs behind you and –
oh, there is the prince come to save you, brow furrowed.
You smile like he’s beneath you, even though he towers over you on his horse.
He gallops away as you begin towards the rising sun
and out into your happily ever after.

But, what if instead:
you refused the offer of the penitent guard
(because where would you go
and could it last? )
or ran from the prince
(because everyone knows that gallantry is dead.)
Or else, gave up when the leap to the dragon seemed too great;
or, your grandmother’s advice seemed a long shot at best;
perhaps, the dark was a comfort in its own way or;
that knife you had would never be able to cut its way through, anyway.
So you remain locked in your tower or lost in the woods
wasting away, lonely and alone, to the end of your days.

Whether you are a damsel in distress, perfect curls and doe like eyes,
saved by some knight or tower guard who was beguiled or bewitched
by your beauty and the pink flowing dress;
or you are a distressed damsel, hair braided back, eyes narrowed
who walked out of danger as easily as princesses seem to walk into it;
or else, you are a million other options in between –
a damsel who likes the dress but took out the petticoat that made it hard to walk;
curled your hair but pinned it back once the fighting began;
cut your hair altogether because the damn thing was so impractical;
sat hoping for a princess instead of a prince  –
your happily ever after could never be found
in a locked up tower or in the midst of the twilight forest.
You are meant to flee from those places
in any way you can.
You must seek out your own happily ever after –
whatever that means to you –
out there in the world,
away from the darkened forest and ivory tower,
where sunlight and freedom can help you grow.

 

Our bridges.

 Never cut what you can untie.
//Joseph Joubert

---

When you are young you think – every bridge must be burned.
And sometimes, you don’t think burning is enough. It must be scorched earth, altogether.
There can be nothing left around you – it must be desolate and empty.
You ground your frustrations into that barren earth and salt it, too
just for good measure. Just to know that nothing, nothing, nothing
will ever grow there ever again.

But that is you, in your youth. Always running too hot, always ready to light a match,
to raze the ground and choke the hedge into lifelessness.
It’s not until later that you realize that burning bridge brings tears to your eyes anyway.
The smoke wafts up and embeds itself in your hair, your clothes,
until all you can smell is the wreckage of your rage.
And later still you realize that all your practice is in bridge burning,
when what you really need to learn is bridge building.
You cross the same river over and over.
Oh, it’s in different spots – sometimes rougher, sometimes smooth as silk
but it’s that same river, alright.
And you can’t remember for the life of you how to cross it
because the ache of burning through it is muscle memory now.

So, perhaps it’s true that no bridge needs to be crossed twice.
But maybe all you need to do is close the gate behind you,
maybe throw the key back in for good measure,
and move on.

 

You were.

 I almost thanked you for teaching me something about survival back there, but then I remembered that the ocean never handed me the gift of swimming. I gave it to myself.
//Y.Z., what i forgot to remember

---

1. You were the sea and I had grown gills to accommodate you.
(Your absence left me gasping in toxic air, grasping uselessly towards the waning tide.)
2. You were the rain and I had sprouted upward branches, always reaching up towards you.
(The loss of you reminded me that I had grown roots, too, and could only remain where you had left me.)
3. You were the heavens and I had hollowed out my bones to stay afloat, surrounded by you.
(The gloom you left behind was suffocating, blinding, and complete.)
3. My hollowed out bones keep me afloat, my voice rising up into the sky, no matter the storms that rained down. (The sky does not hold me up, after all; it is my own beating wings that carry me forward.)
2. The roots keep me grounded, no matter how the wind howls; my branches sprout new life and bring it, too. (The rain passes and I realize that it is the sun, not the torrential fall, that my leaves spring up towards.)
1. The gills and tail recede, legs sprout forth; air strengthens me, emboldens me as I leap forward and away. (The sea is not so vast or final, after all, nor a sea at all; it is only a lake and I can swim in it and leave it as I please.)

Lights behind.

Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
//Warsan Shire

---

Immediately after, all he can feel are the tips of her fingertips on the inside of his wrist. The five light pinpricks seem hot to him, still, even though it’s been weeks since she touched him, even though her hands had always been ice cold even on sunny days, even though he thinks he’s been numb with want ever since she walked out of his little life. That one last touch is seared into his memory, that and the look on her face – the type of sadness artists carve onto roughly hewn blocks of marble: cold, faraway, not quite real. All he can smell is the hint of her perfume in the air, though she took the bottle with her as she left. He supposes that the scent of  shampoo must fade from his sheets soon, but even after every wash, they still smell like her; and because they smell like her, he keeps expecting to turn around and find her lost in a book, hair in a messy ponytail.

Time passes, and he acts in an approximation of moving on. He no longer asks after her at parties, or jump every time he sees a lithe brunette with a confident stride and regal air. He does not stare mournfully at the coffee shop on 3rd and main, he does not shirk at ordering iced americanos, he does not avoid his favorite book store with the nosy owner and dusty shelves. He has rejoined life at large: drinks wine at parties without a wistful look on his face, writes without veiled metaphors of her, watches black and white films with passionless kisses without pining.

But sometimes, in his dreams, he finds her there. Or, a better description – he finds the emptiness of the places that she’s left. There are flashbacks, too bright like overexposed films – her red hat on the beach, her annotations on his hands, the fingertips curled around a coffee cup. When she speaks, her voice sounds tinny, faraway, the words jumbled, the laugh discordant. And when he opens his eyes, he can see the ashes of their love gone out falling slowly to earth, tastes the bitterness of regret and loss in his mouth, feels the burned marks on the inside of his wrist.

 

All the same.

I feel small; but so are stars from a distance.
//somniloquencee, “ten word poem”

---

She looks around her classroom and lets out a small laugh. Laughing abruptly and unexpectedly has always been her way of dealing with feelings she hasn’t quite processed yet, and as she looks around at her now barren walls and empty desks she finds herself at quite a loss to describe exactly how she’s feeling at the moment. A coworker had asked her earlier – So was your first year what you expected? And she had answered after a long moment – Yes…and no. I guess? He had laughed and nodded his head in understanding, which was a bit confusing to her since she wasn’t even quite sure what she meant by such a response. Perhaps that had been his response, too, when someone asked him how he felt at the end of his first year of teaching. Perhaps no one really knew how to respond. That’s what she hopes, at least.

She shakes her head at the recollection and turns her attention back to her workspace – the disaster zone that is her desk area and filing cabinet – which is the last thing that needs to be cleared out before she steps out into her first summer vacation as a teacher. She sets an hour-long goal for herself so that this simple task doesn’t turn into the long, drawn out affair that cleaning out her closet or room at home always seems to become – a job that invariably becomes five times longer than it needs to be because she’s overly sentimental and ends up spending more time reminiscing on random objects she comes across than actually throwing things away.

She makes good headway for about thirty minutes, throwing away old snacks, hurriedly scrawled on post-its and broken pencils (seriously, she thinks, why did she keep so many broken pencils?). She finds a stack of documents she had printed off from some website or another, secondary texts and worksheets she’d planned on using for her persuasive unit but had shoved into a drawer and promptly forgotten about instead. She frowns at them, thinks about what a shame it was that she never used them, resolves to definitely use them next year before she files them away into the appropriate file folder. She finds a few referrals that she had kept meaning to send up to the office for filing but, whoops, never managed to make their way up there, a few phone numbers of parents she kept meaning to call but then accidentally forgot to do so (sometimes accidentally-on-purpose). Her desk is actually somewhat filled with things that she meant to do or wanted to get around to but never did. A graveyard of good (and, at the very least, more organized) intentions. A catalog of the teacher she’d wanted to be. She leans back in her chair, feeling melancholy. Yes, many of her students had come up to her, one after another, saying how much they had enjoyed having her as a teacher, made promises to visit next year, but now she thinks they’re the type of words said during high moments of emotion – empty, platitudes stated on the high rush of endings.

Then she finds a stack of student notebooks that hadn’t been taken home (or, more likely, found their way into the school’s recycling bin) and begins to idly leaf through them. She shakes her head at the messiness of most of her student’s notes but manages to rip out a few pages to use as exemplars for next year. Then she begins reading a few students’ journal entries from the beginning of the year, rereading the notes she wrote back to all 100 of them during that first semester. At the time, as she watched the hours tick by during her coveted weekend and her hand began to cramp, she had cursed herself for making such a lofty goal. Now, though, she’s glad she did it. Her students had read her notes voraciously, more than one commenting how they’d never expected her to really read the journal entries, how awesome it was to know that she actually cared about what they had written. Underneath one of them, she finds a page long note written to her from a student after she’d been sent to the office, a heartfelt apology for her behavior in class. The last thing she packs up is her personal copy of the school yearbook. She spends time looking over her students’ end of the year notes to her, numerous and running over pictures when empty space ran out, heart warmed at the kind messages (though she’ll have to remember to do a better job of teaching the difference between your and you’re next year).

She closes the door behind her and walks out into desk filled hallway, wheeling her rolling cart filled to the brim with books and office supplies behind her. She thinks back to the past year – her dreaded 8th hour, her successful 3rd hour intervention class, the slapdash end of the year yearbook club, the euphoria of her 3rd benchmark tests scores, the disappointing scores on her final benchmark test. She thinks about the hugs and handshakes from her students and their parents, a few tears shed, lots of thanks all around. She thinks – perhaps they won’t visit next year, but the things said in the heat of noonday sun were sincere at the time they were said. She realizes – perhaps her failures were numerous, but so were her victories. There will probably never be movies made about her first year, songs commemorating it, or speeches dedicated to it. She is no great general having just come through a great battle, or an intrepid explorer who has discovered new and exotic lands; nor is she some sort of brilliant scientist who has uncovered a miracle cure or a writer who has penned the next great American novel. But she is here, still standing, proud, exhausted, euphoric and a little wistful, on her last day of her first year, and it feels monumental all the same.

Tonight I’m gonna dance (for all that we’ve been through)

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
//Japanese Proverb

---

There are a lot of ways that her little sister is different now. And most of the differences aren’t good or bad – they just simply are.

But one thing she does notice that bothers her is that her little sister never dances any more. And it’s not even that her sister was the best dancer or that it was some sort of great ambition of hers, but it’s just that she had so much fun doing it. She was always the first one on the dance floor at weddings, at birthday parties, at clubs, and seedy bars. Hell, she didn’t even need a dance floor a lot of the time. She fondly remembers (fondly now, of course; at the time it had been highly annoying) being dragged out of her bedroom after going to battle with her obstinate senior thesis and being forced to take a dance break.

“C’mooooon!” Lydia would cry, flailing her 20 year old body around wildly to some godawful dance remix. “This is good for you! Loosens up the body, gets the blood flowing!”

Of course she would roll her eyes, but her sister would continue on, undeterred, until finally it was the two of them sliding down the hall, waving their arms, singing loudly to a Taylor Swift dance remix.

But now she sits at the lavishly though tastefully decorated table and watches her now 22 year old sister smile and shake her head when their cousins plead with her to come out and dance with them. She realizes with a start that she hasn’t seen Lydia dance at any of the three weddings they’ve attended in the past year. She had noticed before then that her sister no longer danced at bars or clubs, but since she’d never been a fan of those places either way, had chalked it up to her baby sister just growing out of the bar scene.

Now she wonders if her little sister’s penchant for dancing was one of the things lost in last year’s betrayal and heartbreak. They had never been the closest among the siblings, but even she could see the way that sadness had weighed her down. There was a stretch of time where her sister – so bright, so shining – had dulled; her smile never quite crept into her eyes, her laugh wasn’t filled with open joy and wild abandon, even her voice had seemed to shrink in weight and size. So of course, her young sister not dancing is not the end of the world or even the worst thing from the past year. But the sight of Lydia sitting, smiling softly at the dance floor but with her feet still and firmly planted on the ground fills her sadness all the same.

She walks over, then slides, twirls and stretches her hand out below her.

“Ready to tear up the dance floor, Lyds?” She says with a ridiculous little shoulder shrug.

Lydia laughs at her and shakes her head. “I don’t think so…although I’ll be more than willing to sit here and laugh at your tearing it up.”

She has a strange sense of deja vu, flashing back to a wedding three years ago, only the positions had been switched.

The song wound down and switched to a slow dance, with the DJ ordering all couples onto the dance floor to sway and cuddle. She sat down and scooted close to her sister.

“You’re lucky that the song changed, otherwise I would’ve just dragged you out there. Just like you always did to me.”

Her sister smiled up at her and then rested her head on Elizabeth’s shoulder.

“I always liked it when you danced.”

Lydia snorted. “I wasn’t very good at it.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Well, you were never gonna be a candidate for America’s Got Talent.” She tucked a strand of Lydia’s hair behind her ear. “But you always had so much fun. And so did everyone else around you. I mean, you even got your stodgy older sister to dance a few times, as horrifying as that sight is.”

Lydia laughed, a real, bright laugh that looked like it startled her for a moment. “Oh my God, do you remember at the Gibbon’s wedding when you ran into that guy with the white tux and he spilled wine all over his suit?

Elizabeth chuckled. “Well, I mean, really. Who wears a white tux to a wedding? And he was rude to Mary. He definitely deserved it.”

Lydia looked up at her, then dropped her gaze back down to her twisting hands in her lap.

“You never told me how ridiculous I looked every time I danced.” She glanced up at Elizabeth, a dreary look in her eyes. “I always looked half crazed and out of control. And I’m pretty sure I would always accidentally end up hurting myself as I, like, gyrated carelessly across the dance floor.”

Lydia sighed, and smiled up at Elizabeth, though her eyes took on a faraway look. Elizabeth nuzzled her baby sister’s head with her eye, then smoothed her hair softly as she started to speak, softly, full of love.

“It wasn’t carelessness. Or wildness. It was enthusiasm. You were always brimming over with it. And it didn’t matter what anyone thought of you or how silly you might have looked – you were gonna go out there and have fun and anyone who didn’t get it was taking themselves too seriously.” She says, peering down at her sister. “I was always a little jealous of that, you know? I was always too self conscious to really enjoy myself , too worried about how gangly my legs were or if I was poking someone with my elbows.”

Lydia smiled. “Well, it’s a valid concern. You do have really pointy elbows.”

Elizabeth huffed and lightly kneaded Lydia in the ribs with her elbow. “C’mon, next terrible dance remix to some lame pop song and we’ll head out there. We’ll throw our hands around wildly and gyrate half a beat too late. I’ll attempt not to look like Elaine from Seinfeld, while you attempt not to get your shins kicked.” Lydia laughed quietly, then look towards the dance floor.

“It’s been a while since I danced. It’s a little…scary, I guess.” She glanced up at Elizabeth. “My…shins aren’t quite as strong as they used to be. And I’m a little more aware of how silly I look.”

Elizabeth smiled down at her and said, “That’s why your big sister is gonna be out there with you – protecting your soft shins and drawing all potential teasing to her own atrocious dance moves. And, you know, making you wheeze in laughter at my attempts to stay on beat.” She then nudged Lydia to look towards the dance floor. “And seriously? Look over there, those two in the green and yellow? They kind of look like they’re having seizures. And the ones by the booth, with their drinks in hand? I’m pretty sure those are not dance moves but aerobics steps. But none of them care.”

Lydia looked at her, then said wryly, “So you’re saying we should leave our comfortable chairs and go join the ranks of the people that you just openly mocked for their terrible dance moves?”

Elizabeth smiled. “No, I’m saying that the only thing sillier than bad dancing, is being the one sitting down, grumpily mocking bad dancers for the fun that they’re having.”

The slow song began to wind down and a drilling bass began to echo through the reception hall.

Elizabeth got up and extended her hand to her little sister once more.

“C’mon, let’s go make fools of ourselves.” She twirled herself and then took on a tone of voice that was uncannily similar to her younger sister’s. “It’ll be good for us! Loosen up the body, get the blood flowing!” She smiled brightly and wiggled her eyebrows at her sister.

Lydia threw her head back and laughed, then took Elizabeth’s hand and let herself be pulled up. She threw her hands up, did a small shoulder shake, then did a rather stilted moonwalk towards the dance floor.

“That dance floor better watch out. I’m back and better than ever!”

Elizabeth laughed and grabbed Lydia’s hand, and together they ran and slid over to dance floor, not caring who was looking or how silly they might’ve looked.

---

**Title taken from the TSwift song – “Holy Ground”

 

Only human.

You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.
You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.
//Sarah Kay, The Type

---

When she thinks back on it, she believes that the turning point in her career had to be the day she had to contend with a bout of crying in the middle of a silent class.

Of course, any one who has been a teacher long enough – especially in the 8th grade – has undoubtedly seen quite a few children burst into tears. It’s understandable of course – all those surging emotions and broken hearts. The difference here being that the sobbing had been her own, and while she had been in an eighth grade classroom, she was not 13 years old and dressed in the red polo shirt and khaki pants of the prescribed school uniform – rather she was 26, dressed in a pencil skirt and a floral blouse, and sitting at the teacher’s desk.

And the crying wasn’t the kind that you do in the movie theater, when the lead has just sacrificed his or her life, or the lovers are never reunited after all. It wasn’t a stray tear out of the corner of your eye that you could hastily wipe up. It wasn’t even the light sobbing you do as someone’s breaking up with you, the kind where your eyes fill up and tears begin to leak down your face but you still gainfully manage to keep your face from crumbling.

No, this would probably be more appropriately called weeping. This was the kind of crying you only ever hear about in old Victorian novels, where the heroine throws herself across the floor keening in despair and beating at her chest; this was old testament bawling, loud cries bordering on hysterics, so complete that she had to keep gasping for air to fully fuel the sobs being ripped from her chest.

Even in the midst of her sobs, she felt ridiculous. Which really only contributed to the prolonging of the said sobbing. She had imagined herself a superhero, but had been brought down by one too many bad classes. She had thought of herself as a wall – high and impenetrable – but she had crumbled after a single, ill-timed snarky retort at the end of a long day. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, she kept thinking to herself, as she sat, head in hands, gasping through her fingers. She was a superhero and insults bounced off of her; her students were glass and she could see right through them; she was a statue and nothing could touch her.

She was none of those things. Suddenly, her despair deepened and the sobs that had finally, finally begun to abate started afresh once more. She was bombarded with thoughts that she was too soft, she was too young, she was to0 wide-eyed and pliable; that there would be no coming back from this, now; that now all the other teachers, all the others students, her entire world would come to learn what she had feared the most – that she was an impostor, a fraud, a useless adult masquerading as a capable teacher.

What can I do? She thought miserably.

“What did you say?” One brave student said in front of her, tentatively looking up from his lap and towards her.

She realized she must have spoken her thought out loud.

“I said, what can I do? What can I do to make this class better?” Of course she was still half crying and too short of breath, so the question came out more like, “Wh-wh-what ca-an I dooo? Wh-at can I do – hiccup- to maaaaake -deep breath- th-this class be-tt-tter?” She took a deep breath, forcing her sore throat to swallow back her tears. Softly, as though the volume of her voice would keep away any more tears, she continued. “I want you all to get out a piece of paper and tell me what I can do to make this class better. I like you guys but…but we can’t do this any more. Something has to give.”

She lightly sobbed at the end of the last sentence. Something had given, of course, and they all knew it. She was weak, pitiful, a wounded sorry sight.

One by one her students crept up to her, laid their papers on her desk and quietly returned to their seats. She could hear low whispers and hushed tones, but they were too low to clearly heard. She was too low to fully hear them. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on her clasped hands in her lap, twisting like as though they had the knobs to her tear ducts beneath them. She could only guess at their content – the murmured gloating of seeing a fallen, shattered enemy combatant; or giddy, secondhand embarrassment that comes with a loss of respect.

Once her students had quietly left the room to join the cacophony of their classmates in the whole, she slunk down in her chair once more, head in her hands. She might have begun sobbing once more, if a student hadn’t slowly come back in and shuffled up to her desk. She looked up at him – the loudest, the ringleader, the hardest to wrangle. She could only imagine how she looked – eyes shot through with red and puffy, hair in disarray.

He looked down at his hands and then flicked a speck of imaginary dust off her desk. Finally, he looked her in the eye, face solemn and drawn.

“I just want to say that I’m really sorry.” He motioned to the stack of papers on her desk. “We’re all really sorry.” He focused once more at her desk. “Everyone likes you. And we didn’t…we didn’t know we were hurting you. We’ll be better.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. Then smiled. It was tremulous, true, and she could still taste the salt from her tears in her mouth, but it was a real, genuine smile.

“Thank you. I really appreciate that.” Her voice shook with unshed tears, though now for a different reason. “And it’s ok. Tomorrow is a new day. It’ll be a good one.” She surprised herself with that statement. She’d mostly said it to fill up the awkward silence that had cropped up, but was surprised to find that she both meant it and believed it.

He nodded at her, face still serious, then shuffled quickly out of her class.

She smiled once more and grabbed the stack of papers on her desk. Paper after paper contained apologies and promises to be better; many contained phrases similar to the one her student had just uttered – we didn’t realize we were hurting you.

She sat back, contemplating the day. She was embarrassed by what had happened – mortified was probably closer to the truth, really – and she didn’t see that changing any time soon. And it wouldn’t do at all to constantly burst into tears at the end of every long day. She would need to toughen up in that regard, keep a closer watch on her emotions that were always so easily bubbling over the surface. But, surprisingly, other than the mortification she felt…okay. No, she was not a superhero, or an impenetrable wall, or a stone statue. But she was also not a fraud or fake or an impostor.

She was just a person who was sometimes sad, sometimes joyful; with skin that was sometimes too thin but with a heart big enough for all her students.

She was only human, and now everyone knew it.

And that was just fine.