Shrubs Can't Talk

by: Haleigh Dixon

The streets glitter as if the sun beat the concrete into millions of little diamonds. If not for the pressure of heat. The tension. I think the streets might revert to sand. The occasional car swooshes by. Marrying the scent of rubber, grass, and wind. I stare from behind my sunglasses. With the way I'm staring you'd assume I had superpowers. Like Cyclops from the X-Men. But I'm not Scott Summers. I don't have ruby quartz glasses, and my dad isn't a weird space pirate. 

My glasses have thick black arms that swing like a door with loose hinges. The arms make a feeble clanking sound every time they collide with each other. The lenses are tinted blue, not red: the color my optometrist recommended. I stare at the sky like the sun can't hurt me. The sun and I play hide and seek. The sun seeks from behind the two-story houses with gray rooftops. I hide in my not-so-secret spot just under the hibiscus shrub. The same spot where I wrote about a girl who roamed the Earth like a star without a constellation. 

The trees loom with a frightening stillness. The leaves brush together with the same gruff sound my hair makes when I take a comb to it before it's wet. The trees watch us play. They felt humongous when I was small… like I was Hogarth staring up at the Iron Giant. The only thing bigger than the trees was the immense strength of my mom. 

I sigh and shift where I sit. Back and forth. Back and forth. Just like I do when I'm in pain, but I can't drop limply to the ground like a cow in a slaughterhouse when it takes a hammer to the head. With the way that I'm sitting, I know I'll have to pop my hip bone back into place. Somehow, I still think that’ll hurt less than the sun lashing its rays upon my neck. I thank my 16-year-old self for having the foresight to spend my $20 Kohl's gift card on a hoodie thin enough to deflect bug bites and skin cancer.

The only thing protecting the grass from my bony tailbone was an old towel my mother used to clean the floor when the toilet overflowed. That towel had been drowned in detergent. Waterboarded. Rung out by the steely hands of the drier. And by now the towel has lived a hundred more lives than I. I can’t comprehend the immeasurable weight of having to serve until I’m ripping at the seams. I don't want to. 

The only thing I can comprehend begins and ends with my skin. My skin feels like chocolate fondue. Boiling hot, and ready to pop from my bones. I don’t know why I sat away from trees. Maybe I did so to separate myself from the pitter-patter of ants that live near the tree stumps. They offered some respite, but the hibiscus shrub called to me. Maybe it was just delirium, but the shrub said, “Sit with me. Sit with me while you write. You are my kin. We can contemplate the meaning of life while staring at the sky.” I wish I hadn't listened to the shrub. I wish I'd dragged myself by the nape of my neck, right where you'd hold the collar of an angry Mut. I wish I sat under the trees. Maybe then I wouldn't burn under my skin as I write about the sorrow and rage that curdles my bones. 

As my pen grazes the crisp pages of my notebook, the one with thin pink lines cutting through to the rings that bind the pages. My fingers fiddle with the delicately downturned dog ears. I distinctly register that I write on the brother of the shrub. The same shrub protecting me from the blistering sun. I avoid the gaze of the shrub. I have more important things to do. I just hope the shrub I’ve known for all my life will allow sympathy within its loving shadow. When I leave, I know I'll be picking dried twigs and leaves that stick like gum from the bottom of my sneakers. I'll welcome the grass prickling through my pants like tiny acupuncture needles. I'll stay under the shrub even as its shadow rescinds and betrays my hiding spot. Today I'll let the sun win our game of hide and seek.