Metamorphosis
Bianca Sproul
2019
A ladybug meandered by a bush branch, overlooking the poolside as I learned to find my voice. She swayed there, watching as I struggled to speak, drowning in wordless speech. She pitter-ed along the ridges of my wet finger, a morse code through my skin: What do you want to say?
Learning to speak came by degrees. As I began to nibble on words, I filled the husk of my curves.
Remembering what I loved built lost vocabulary. I formed sentences and thoughts, delighted by the ways my voice sang with old passions. I devoured words like AYCE meals, fingering morsels of memorable flavors down my parched throat.
I further nurtured my diction with discovery. A dragonfly laid by the train tracks, her body found in eternal flight—wings suspended in frozen conversation. I swaddled her in a napkin and brought her to a garden with dappling light and moving dictionaries. In the evening, I strung her into the sky so she may rest.
I flirted with dreams after the dragonfly. Once-lost dreams pulled me to fly around the world.
2020
Wanderlust only brought me so far.
I didn’t expect the anger to arrive with my voice. Bile crept up from my throat as vocabulary, grammar, and syntax formed sentences I wished I never knew. A piece of paper placed in my hand promised help. Countries, minutes, hours, oceans away, I thought I’d find solace with my voice. Instead, words I used to scarf down left a foul taste in my mouth – like rotting insects.
I held onto hopes that my mental medicine laid in this faraway country, perhaps in an Italian gallery I had yet to witness.
I braced for the return from my short-lived travels. Was my carapace of words strong enough?
I laid in wait. My heart faltered when the voice-thief called. But my words did not.
A honeybee moseyed up a purple flower after the verbal spar. She busied herself in the folds of vibrant petals, blissful body fluffed with pollen. I held my breath as she hummed with life. I watched her stinger pulse, nestled by flowers and fuzz. I crouched to her level, my breath steadied and pulse calmed. My chest felt light with sunshine as I considered a necklace of petals to adorn my neck.
She turned to mirror me and flew towards the blue skies.