Meal Prep

This piece won first place in the poetry category for the Skyway Collegiate Creative Writing Competition in Fall 2023.

Mana had a list of unfortunate habits. Twitchng and ticking, biting and beating, clawing and crying. They only amplified in crowds, in classes, in common places where people and their shadows ate away at personal space. 

Mana’s body would convulse uncontrollably, something akin to a shiver. It would slither unexpectedly upon him, like a snake slowly creeping upon its prey. Like whatever stalked him from the shrubs and branches. Mana knew it was bound to happen so he would just expose his neck open for the snake to lunge. 

Mana happened to gnaw at his flesh when he was frustrated. And math made him beyond frustrated. So frustrated he would beat on his head like a drum until there was a numbness or an answer. An answer to the equation, to his nagging parents and peers, or to why the forest would stare back at him. 

Mana would claw at any and everyone who dared to embrace him, and then weep at how truly touch starved he was. Starved enough so that the wind howling through the forest of trees felt like cold enveloping arms around him. Whether it was to swallow him whole in a big gulp or to comfort him, it didn’t matter to Mana.

Mana had a habit of counting numbers for each of his steps, always in the rhythm of a waltz.  One.Two.Three. 

   One.Two.Three. 

      One.Two.Three.

 As if he was dancing against the sea of people to make it across to shore and to the forest. 

To the forest where the leaves would scatter and ruffle with laughter. Where he could dance the waltz the forest had taught him and the only eyes to view where the hallow markings of the birch trees.The weeds of the forest would cling to his shoes whenever he tried to leave.Though Mana would convince the forest that he would return. The forest would bid him goodbye with blossoming flowers, and threaten him with prickly thorns. Mana thought the latter was unnecessary, Mana would live and die with the forest. Let his body decompose and feed his only friend.