FUNGUS GNATS

Fungus Gnats

By Divya Benezette

The sun hits my face as I rise and a fungus gnat flies past my face 

I think it must be from my plants nearby

I sit up straight and another lands on my arm,

I think it must be from my plants nearby?

I stand up and they swarm my body

and I swear they must be from the plants nearby –

“The calendar has been switched to May,”

But isn’t it July?

I stare in the mirror and find mushrooms protruding from My arms,

moss for hair, 

The wall behind it has eroded.

I stand in the rubble of my room - it must have been destroyed sometime

last night.

“How long have I been asleep?”

Realizing there is no one to answer,

I peer over the jagged wall and touch the overgrown ivy,

My Rapunzel leading me down to an undiscovered wilderness,

All of the forest animals gather around to greet me, Small voices from the lake crown my head

and say I am their Aurora - 

Did I die? Is this heaven? Or have I been crowned queen of some sick hell?

You didn’t die, the voices say,

This is your life now,

It has been dreaming of you since the day you were born.

I have no home or anywhere to go,

So, I sit in the grass and embraced an overflowing, blush lehenga 

Draping itself over my body.

I release a close-mouthed smile, realizing the lake that touches my skirt

hem

I stare into the water and recognize I am only four and too small for this

lehenga, and I am still twenty-one

and too big for fairytales

But here I Am -

And every version of myself is too full of sentiment to leave.

Fungus gnats still surround me,

The everlasting messengers for my decay, “At least the mushrooms are

beautiful,” I say, 

“Should I never make sense of time again

I will at least now learn what it means to be free.”