I drink spring water from a Plastic gallon with a label outlined in blue And there are some things you tell yourself you'll do as an adult that you can't follow through with Like making your own soap and buying organic and not getting too tired after work for hobbies. There are things I tell myself to stay alive and there are things you tell yourself too. When I was little, the world was kirby airride and super smash bros melee and animal crossing on my brother's gamecube. Hopscotch scrapes on my knees from falling off the monkey bars and dogs barking wind whipping playing Scribblenauts on my pastel pink Nintendo DS falling asleep to the sound of cars driving too fast down my street Amy Adams still singing in a blue floral dress on my portable DVD player. When I was in middle school I got an ipod instead of a phone unfiltered access to the internet on my sister's old Acer laptop navy blue and perpetually loading. Tumblr superwholock brainrot pinterest boards I used for recipes I would never make and hunger games edits I pinned at school in the computer room after practicing typing and failing at math and learning history but just the heavy stuff doing the Charleston for extra credit dressing up like Elizabeth Bennet for extra credit picking a boy to like each year but never being able to follow through. In grade school I would draw in marker on tissues then pour water on them - pink purple magenta blue all blended together if you folded it just right - I dried them out then used them as rugs in my yellow fisher price dollhouse. In the dollhouse the youngest sister had a room in the attic and her family left her alone no one was allowed up there only her and her cousin, where they played Kirby Airride and Mario Kart on her brother's Gamecube all day, before graduating to Timesplitterz on an old Xbox and after that Little Big Planet on her very own Playstation3. This is the road map of my childhood, and I only go down it while I'm waiting at a red light drinking from something that's trying to trick me into believing I got it from a naturally occurring body of water instead of a grocery store shelf, like the world is just one big Plastic facade I can't escape.
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Abigail Ray (she/her) is a writer from Portland, Oregon. She has been published in Fruitslice, Maudlin House, and Same Faces Collective, among others. She has her BS in English and Writing, and primarily writes poetry, personal essays, and fiction.
