The Ghost Apple

In 1862, Christina Rossetti published No, Thank You, John: a poem about a woman (quite firmly) rejecting the affections of a man named John.

“Let bygones be bygones:
Don’t call me false, who owed not to be true:
I’d rather answer “No” to fifty Johns
Than answer “Yes” to you.”

Brutal, right?

How long can you put it off? The piercing truth? I still don’t know, and I have been hiding my one end through and through. I once described my ability to dampen my true feelings as creating a lasagne: the meat is the truth of the matter, and the lasagne sheets are what keeps it from spilling out. And what is the truth you may ask? While there are many marbles, the largest, shiniest one is my desire for success. I want the fame and glory of being a poet who surpasses her century.

Where I grew up, there was a myth / folklore of a farmer whose cow’s head got stuck in a gate of five slats. Instead of destroying the gate, he felt it cheaper to saw off the cow’s head, and as such, people from my little town are called “keaw-yeds”. Legends and fairytales are something I have always been fascinated with: from the white lady who is said to roam the streets at night to the cow’s head. I, the invisible girl from an invisible town, want to be famous.

In my school days, you would forget I am there. I was overlooked for most opportunities, seemingly shouting in my own little bubble. They didn’t want to hear me; they still don’t. I roll around the earth in my bubble of purple haze, inviting everyone inside, but they choose other ones to pop. I might as well be a headless body: for all they care, that is all I am. People don’t care about words and heart anymore. Society eats up the Gwyneth Paltrows, the Kate Moss’, and the Adeles (post-weight loss, i.e. “see, it can be done?”).

I didn’t think my choice of career would be easy per se, but by this age, I believed I would be decently well-known. This is especially true when you consider I have wanted this since I was six years old. And whenever I post my frustrations online, people approach me as if I am new to this whole thing! Doesn’t that show just how ghostly I am?

“I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.”
—A Birthday Present, Sylvia Plath

When I look at what I wanted to be when I grew up, almost everything included an element of showmanship. For a time, I wanted to be a pop star. I used to upload videos of me singing to YouTube, hoping and praying that someone would discover me. Unfortunately, all those videos got deleted after people in my high school found them. I wish I hadn’t, but years of prior bullying taught me to make an easier life for myself.

In my heart, the prospect of becoming a famous writer was the only thing keeping the wind in my sails. What I didn’t know was that it would take so long. I’m going to turn twenty-eight this year, and I feel just as invisible as I did in primary school. While my health issues have certainly ensured an increased reclusiveness, I was always that way. I have one old school friend in real life and some acquaintances / friends from open mics, but I am not a sociable person. It should be stated that I am incredibly adaptable: I often appear to be a social butterfly.

My true best friend is my mother. We have the closest relationship—and always have. She knows me inside and out, upwards and downwards, and all the way the round. Mother knows what I’m thinking by the way I wring my hands together (a habit I inherited from her). If I was to lose her, I would lose my sanity ands place in this world. We do everything together! Yes, we often fight and lose our temper, but we are two halves of the same whole.

“I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness…”
—The Horses, Ted Hughes

Years ago, mother and I would travel by bus (instead of the car) to my nana’s house on Christmas Eve. We would get up at around 3am and catch the bus at 5am. One of these times, it had snowed quite heavily, meaning the bus never came. But while we waited at the bus stop, the cool, pulling of the frosty air entered our lungs. The rest of town was dead asleep; some still wrapping presents. This is how I feel all the time.

I am out in that thick coat of snow, alone and unnoticed. My footprints are visible, but other feet take their place. Twigs and those little fire-engine berries flatten themselves into my shape; frozen in place. Throughout the day, many shoes will tread on me, barely caring to apologise. Yet I am expected to peel myself away from the gravel without a helping hand. Am I not like the ghost apple, hanging from the branch as something between states, neither dead nor living?

“I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.
The curlew’s tear turned its edge on the silence.”
—The Horses, Ted Hughes

There are so few in this world willing to see me in my emeralds (as Virginia Woolf wrote to Vita Sackville-West). My lamplight is of perfect isolation, bringing up my flaws and peculiarities. I am anything but silent beneath its unforgiving bronze. Time is unstuck when two like-minded folk come to the cross hairs, but who is honest?

My biggest fear is to die a nobody. Where will all my notebooks go? Will my words be shredded? How long (if at all) will it take for people to discover my work? Am I going to surpass my era?

These are the questions I ponder, alone, misunderstood, and underestimated.

“I am the guardian of the sleeping fawn; the snow is dear to me; and the moon rising; and the silver sea.”
—Orlando, Virginia Woolf