A Tribute to "Wild Geese"
by Emma Sullivan ‘24
CW: sexual assault
I am eighteen and three quarters. Since I was at least seventeen and two quarters, I wondered what the symbols of this phase in my life would be, and I thought about whether I would get them tattooed. My father had tattoos marking the anniversary of the car crash that took his hearing, and he etched the memory of his four years at Bradley University into his ankle in fraternity letters. That one, he said, he regretted. I thought my symbol might be “x+x,” the heading of a chapter in my favorite book, then a note in a friend’s handwriting, then a line from my father’s favorite song. On my eighteenth birthday, my high school boyfriend told me a tattoo would be rash.
So, I put the idea aside.
The next symbol came after I read Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese at the onset of quarantine. I’d found a copy of her poetry collection as we were clearing out our attic before a move, and I thought, Yes, I just need to let my body “love what it loves.”
In that first week of total and utter silence, the thing my “soft animal self” needed was a confrontation. I’d always brushed off the jokes about liking girls from the boys at my lunch table, or once from my father at Thanksgiving dinner. While I dodged the thought, I compiled a Straight-Girl-History for myself as refuting evidence. Now that I was in forced meditation, I had to address that, Yes, boys were fine, I guess. But girls made my breath hitch.
I thought maybe, this is the thing I love and need to let myself love.
Although determined to explore my identity, I was lonely. So, I returned to the familiar. Just as schools announced they’d extend spring break for a second week, as a precaution, I snuck over to an old fling’s house. All we’d ever been were two kids too young to be having a casual relationship, having one anyway. The idea didn’t sit well with me either, but I knew he’d take little convincing if I messaged him out of the blue, and I needed the endorphins. His mother checked my temperature at the door, which even she felt was a little melodramatic at that point. Then, once the rest of the family’s bedroom lights went out, I had my first orgasm.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. Image courtesy of Amazon.
I’d had plenty of premarital, high school sex––some begrudgingly. But this skill of his kept me lingering just long enough for me to reattach. He invited me on a trip to his friend’s lakehouse, where each boy got to bring one chick or their male friend who would sit out on the mating rituals because his girlfriend’s travel team was in Orlando. Once I realized how simply we would all pair up, how the boy who brought me would have some kind of social ownership over me as a denoted significant other, I ran in the other direction, kicking up dust down the street as I did.
In the phase between my puppy dog infatuation and his humiliating boys-trip declaration, Bridget, my best friend, and I spent a handful of nights sitting high in the fling’s basement. We laughed about how after all these years we were all, somehow, the same kids we used to be. One night, I wrote the poem on a napkin and stuffed it between the couch cushions in his basement. At least when he cleans up the place after we leave, I thought, he might read it and understand that I can’t help but want to see him. That I want him to give me a place here. That I wish he’d forgive me for wanting that. The paper still sat there two Saturdays later, more crumpled than before.
A month later, he asked an expired “What are we?” That he didn’t know from reading my note gave me the feeling that I’d better straighten myself out. I was honest with him for the first time ever. I told him I thought he was insensitive and that his brusqueness came from somewhere.
That somewhere might have been from Charlie, my fling’s closest friend since puberty. I had dated Charlie first, though I’d known his friend for far longer. Charlie proved possessive and demanding, and I’d realize years later how he had taken advantage of my innocence.
When Charlie found out our mutual friend had been driving me home after school, he convinced him to abandon me. To pick his best friend over some stupid girl, which to them was all our combined histories amounted to.
I told the friend, years later as I laid on his bed after we had found each other again, that because Charlie had assaulted me during our time together, his opinions on my relationships weren’t viable in my world.
Later, I apologized for my bad-mouthing. He said, “No, don’t worry. I think it’s cute.” That night, I dreamt about arson.
His words sent me crashing down to earth again. As invincible as I had hoped and prayed I would be, I still couldn’t muster the strength to pretend that this didn’t phase me. To have all of my aching hurt brushed aside, told me that sometimes our bodies crave what will hurt them––but want is no crime.
The crisis I felt was that I never craved what wouldn’t hurt me. I did not crave warmth so much as blistering sunburns or frostbite. I never sought softness for myself. I spent a handful of nights reeling over the standards I had set for myself. For others, I was going above and beyond. For my own heart and mind, my mantra had become “close enough.”
I realized what I needed most was to acknowledge myself in a vacuum. To find a sense of pride that wasn’t dependent on who I was to anyone else.
I have known, always, that writing is the key to my inner peace. My own voice is the only one that doesn’t mock or critique. Of course, getting to the desk was not quite as peaceful. “Close enough,” meant fighting to get to the things I enjoyed for me. I rediscovered Oliver’s opening line: “You do not have to be good.”
You need only try, and I have renewed this vow to myself. The most sacred thing is my own heart, and I am learning to cherish my own words as much as others’.
Emma Sullivan ‘24 (es111, Twitter @emmasophiasu) wishes she could take a trip home to Florida to see her cat, Dave. From the September/October 2020 issue.