Please welcome today’s guest writer, Bethany Cooper (’18). Bethany graduated with her Bachelor’s in religion and lives in her hometown, Evanston, IL. In the past year, she has served lots of food to lots of bougie people but is moving on to work with youth. She enjoys spending her time with “messy” people, running by the lake, and eating peanut butter (“Smuckers All Natural,” an important distinction).
Loss permeates
me fills every
crevice slides into
the cracks
I see someone
and I want them
I want to see
them all of them
You get to see the plot
unfold except it is real
they sit before you and
they are real
I imagine becoming part of the story the
excitement and the honor is
overwhelming it fills me to the brim fills
my cracks and crevices
Fear lies with me all the while
becomes the interlude between every
scene I do not want to listen to it and
yet I do
It tells me that the story will
end it points to the moments
of pain pain becomes the
end loss must be the
resolution
I am paralyzed this
person whose story I
crave to be in the
most is never told the
truth
They are in my dreams and I am experiencing
the story before it has happened I have already
had enough
I am catapulted into the past
there is enough evidence to tell
me my dreams are my reality
How can it be that my dreams are not actually
dreams? they are not about hope and longing
they are about disappointment and death
Somehow I wake up I
am not looking at my
life I am in my life
Fear still
exists Pain
still exists
Loss still
exists
They feel less potent I know
them they are old friends I
wave and turn the other
direction
I am face to face with the person I
want I decide to choose courage I
decide to let them see me and it is
exhilarating
This time it does not end as
expected I can have them, but not
all of them I do not want that I want
a proposition to be in the sequel
I consider letting myself be an extra it takes a
good two hours for me to realize I am too good
for that I will wait to be the main character in
someone’s story
My feelings explode out of me it is tears and anger
and deep hurt and I fucking sit with it I do not run
from it I do not hide I let people see me when it
would be easier to play a part
I feel like utter shit and I
feel like Superwoman a
force to be reckoned
with this will not stop me
There are other stories I am going to be part of there are
stories I am part of my story is magnificent and I get to
choose the main characters too
I never want to feel this again but I know I am capable
of moving through it a million times I am resilient
Invincible
I believe that the eventual resolution will take the shape of my true
dreams possibly misguided revisions likely necessary but not
impossible
Patience will serve
me
The credits roll and I do not look for my
name I walk out of the theater I find a new
story I do not sit and watch I audition for
the main role
