Dragonflies — by Joy Myers
Artwork by James Keul
Your first out of body experience: standing in a field, swarmed by a cloud of dragonflies at sunset. Zig-zagged highways of iridescent wings soar through gold-dust air – tornado of purple against orange. Each dip and swirl pulls like fingers through honey. Movement increases, yet an internal pulse matches your body to their rhythm; a measured beat steadies your breathing.
Your next out of body experience: sitting in the passenger seat of a dusty Toyota Camry – grey seats and chipped burgundy exterior. You’re holding a boy’s hand while he drives you home. He says warm things while his thumb caresses the outside of your fingers; with your other hand you hold his thick blanket that is still heavy with the dampness of nighttime dew.
Softness softness softness but you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve been hit by a bus. What is gentleness, if not repentance for cruelty? Your brain, as if it had been baked on the summer concrete, buzzes too loudly for coherent thoughts to safely settle. He told you that you’re beautiful and that he loves you and repeating that to yourself is nearly enough to cool the scream that boils in your throat. He loves you – so this is okay.
With a quiet kiss on the cheek, he drops you in front of your building. When you finally make it to your room, you unclench your teeth and the tears don’t fall, really; they seep. They seep out like your entire body is weeping, like your seams are unraveling in protest of what has happened. But this is what love looks like – this is okay.
He texts you after several hours – very considerate: I feel like I made you do something you didn’t want to do. You can’t respond, can’t even think about a response because the tears have stopped, and the dragonflies are back. You’re lying faceup on the floor, your vision morphing into a kaleidoscope ripe with their colors. Reflections of each dancing and flying and burning and sighing and permeating the room, leaving the walls charred by purple haze.
After completely melting into the carpet, the convulsing of your chest has stopped – until you find yourself on the phone consoling him. You said no – you know it and he knows it – but of course he didn’t mean to, would never do something to hurt you, would never ignore your refusals – so it’s okay.
Or maybe none of it was okay – but now, years later, you are okay because despite feeling the burn of unapologetic hands, you have learned to scrub away lingering fingerprints of men who distorted the meaning of love – men who did what they pleased despite your protesting speech then laid back as you soothed them in their guilt.
Not all change is like the dragonflies, not beautiful or sweet, not wings lined with warm colors; sometimes change is a blonde boy wearing a Jesus Loves You t-shirt pushing past whispered objections. Yet, there is still a metamorphosis.
Joy Myers is an editor and social media writer employed in Springfield, MO. She graduated college in December 2023 with a BA in English. She spends most of her free time playing piano, writing, and decorating her new apartment!