Spring 2012 Stylus

Here is where she’s gone from me, but no matter what I do, I just can’t get myself to like eggplant or squash or the carrots hidden in the cracks.

My sister and I like following the cracks on the sidewalk, carefully avoiding stepping on them because we know that it could kill mother, but then suddenly there’s just this sudden urge and snap!

We’re stomping on them and waiting for the omens or at very least the bear to appear. The bear follows children and scares away all the bullies, but no one knows that anymore. Even my own fairytale book is gathering dust, but at least I have it memorized back to front and back again because that’s the way I read it and learned the language of backwards. Sdrawkcab. It’s like Pig Latin but better because only I know it. My sister, too, but she sometimes forgets her vocabulary and really needs to practice conjugating verbs. Or are verbs declined? No matter. I’ve never done either, because really it’s undoable in Sdrawkcab and apart from that I’m a strict xenophobist. Sister says it’s no wonder I failed Spanish, but I just say, Hsinaps?

But that’s all there, and here my roommate’s started worrying about me. She thinks I forgot the past tense, but I told her it was all part of my xenophobia. She just gave me a weird look and called the RA to say I haven’t eaten for three days. Apparently, neither she nor the RA accepts the common knowledge that you can’t stand on your head with a full stomach.

Upside-down, dancing on the ceiling, my sister sings, and I fling a carrot at her. I’ve been finding them all over my room and I’m really not flattered. Do I look like a vegan? I prefer my unisex hamburger with Freedom well-fried and greased to perfection, although I don’t see any ham in it. Because even if I say that there should be more of me and less of the world, I won’t deny that we’re actually one and the same. It’s called assimilation, and it’s the goal of all great ruling nations. It’s how they tame the natives. The Romans gave the world their law and order and their gods, but the natives were allowed to keep their own deities as well, and that’s how I feel right now. Somewhere inside me, I still have my household gods, but the rest of me is in a smoothie that obnoxious blondes buy because the recipe makes the claim to be thirty percent lower in fat than all the competing brands.

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