Vivid colors flicker amongst laughter and early 2000s animation. The tones are saturated with a love that modern designs lose in their complexity, a love known only to those who sat in front of the TV for hours, smiling up at their favorite characters.
The music isn’t crisp or clear, but it is clouded by a flowing fog that softens the nostalgic blow it carries. Catchy tunes hold hands with gentle background tracks, wrapping my heavy-lidded eyes in a warm hug.
But something is off.
The soft lines of hand-drawn cartoons peer down at my body crumpled into the fetal position. My hand is frantically searching around for a partner to hold it, to tell it that everything is okay. Nobody is here to take my hand in their own in this dimly lit room.
I’m sick to my stomach; there is a hard pit at the bottom of it. A seed that had to build resistance to the acid it was surrounded with, creating a hard outer shell—one that is so solid that the plant is unable to sprout from such a thick outside.
The seed never splits enough for the plant to wrap its tendrilled fingers around the edge, fighting for a chance at a crack of sunlight. But sunlight doesn’t exist for this sprout, so its only chance of survival is to remain hidden away behind the comfort of its coffin.
The pit never blossoms; it remains in my stomach evermore.
My eyes are squeezed shut as tears spring through the cracks with a sadness unnamed by the English language. A sadness that needs to be rocked to sleep and whispered nursery rhymes to in a motherly gentleness. A sadness that leaves tear stains on her mother’s old t-shirt—one that feels dirty and embarrassed for existing.
I wish that the faded sunshine and pastel flower fields could invoke what they have intended to once again, but all of my grins are tainted with a confliction that only age knows. Nowadays, only my eyes smile.
A slowly swirling pot of a splash of teardrops and a pinch of bittersweetness combines with a cup of purity I had years ago. The seed floats in this combination, bobbing up and down with the ripples.
But for now, I ignore the pit in my stomach. Behind my eyes, I am consumed by this mature contradiction, but outwardly, I am curled up on the couch, watching cartoons on my day off from school. My hand finally finds a hold, and as my fingers interlock with fingers that don’t exist, my thousand-yard stare watches the future.
