motors - Jelisa Gonzalez

There’s a rush that comes with knowing you withheld nausea on the NYC ferry. A superiority with curling your right hand into a fist while your left holds your little overstuffed bag with your wallet, keys, airpods, and lip combo. I didn’t hear the Staten island ferry much. I heard waves cut past myself and all the other passengers, propelling us forward with a tenacity. That narrow hunk of metal. I knew my social anxiety took a hold when I didn’t want to stand outside, take in seawater, for fear of opening my mouth and being denied my human right to take up space. Danger assessment led to mental boxes, crates of overstimulated thoughts, no gagging, and imaginings of a carousel I’m too familiar with. The NYC ferry wasn’t as confining. It felt as though I was 16 in Paris again, looking out at the Eiffel Tower trying to not imagine how things could have ended with him again. The upturned pepperoni on a coal brushed crust, minimal sauce. Keep it together. I’ve saved myself from myself one too many a time, that time, it was regurgitating a pizza. The NYC ferry had risk factors. We could swim, but could those girls wearing sundresses and open-toed sandals outswim us? An inferiority trickles in when you understand gravitational pulls carry more weight than freewill. And your esophagus is the boss of your tongue. And your lips are the boss of your mouth. And your nose is the boss of the rest of your body, remaining upright, and not falling on your tailbone. And in hearing the motors humming against a riptide and brown waters, you are a human again, and background patterns carry you along as you fight to stay afloat. 

Jelisa has been writing for the Arch Literary Journal for about a year now. She's currently a combined student in the BA/MA program studying English. She enjoys writing poetry, reading fiction, and listening to music in her spare time. She is also a tutor at the Writing Center as well as a copy editor for the Albany Student Press.