I Feel Like Myself When I'm Eating An Apple

What Comes Naturally

By Bianca Llerena

Everything sounds like it’s coming from conch shells filled with sand. It’s all so muffled and decayed. My body flinches, and I’m insecure again, something has shaken me awake and I feel irregular in my own body. Suddenly, I don’t know what to do with my hands or why my hair doesn’t look right when I tuck it behind my ears.

But That Is Just Routine.

Find me an apple, any variety will do, and so easily will I return to myself. Let my body complete a task and she will breathe a sigh of relief and return to what she knows best. It’s not that the apple is a symbol for anything, it's the way I’ve been eating apples since I was a child—it comes naturally to me.

And in the same way, I’m myself again as I walk through neighborhoods and turn the apple into an emaciated core. Chewing gum has the same effect. Other simple things work too, like when I’m walking around with headphones in, the volume pulsating through my brain and between my ears, or when I’m sitting in a coffee shop and writing a poem. I’m me again and it’s so simple.

Put me in a black tank top and blue jeans and I’ve never felt more comfortable. Wait for the winter and watch as I slip my hands in my coat pockets. Listen to me tell a good story, read a book in an armchair, or watch me collect leaves in the park; I’m no one else and that is so amazing.

So when the sound wavers again and my eyes turn to the sidewalk because I’m not quite sure where I should look, I know I’ll return to myself as soon as I turn the volume up a little louder. Or as I make my way through a Honeycrisp.