Limelighter

In exactly a month, it will be my twenty-first birthday. A strange thing to reckon with for someone who vacillates between feeling sixteen and thirty-five, depending on the day. I remember the violence of salty wind thrashing against the wide, picturesque windows of the restaurant during last year’s celebration. The taste of some hybrid concoction—rum, whisky, a warmth—gliding down my parched throat, blooming as it stretched through my blood vessels. I had thought twenty to be an embarrassing number: no longer precocious, yet not impressive either. When you’re a teenager and “doing so much,” surely the effort counts double. Now the thought doesn’t even brush my mind. I simply sit in front of my double monitors, glowing with radio stations and flashcard decks, and breathe.

This year, I want a party. It doesn’t need to be extravagant, draped in gilt and studded with diamonds, but I want to say the word “twenty-one” aloud among my friends. To hear it echoed around the chirp of a group chat made flesh: well-dressed, vibrant, present. I’ve been toying with themes—something vampiric, perhaps, or glamorous vintage. Maybe even a ‘20s mafia ensemble, all sharp suits and heavy shadows. I already own the suits to match.

I’m thinking about last Wednesday—the gentle glow of lamplight cusping up my velvet-clad shoulders, the slight tremble between thumbprint and papercut as I balanced my recital book. Two poems: one from last year, the other from last month. That excited, hurried tone I once reserved for Shakespeare, or for the commandeering apathy of Beckett. For a second, I was wholly back—locking eyes with the audience, grinning, twirling like a child. Before introducing my latest poem, FLEDGLING, I indulged in a flourish: “I think there’s something so queer about vampirism. And I’ve always wanted to be a vampire. Or maybe I am one! But it would be terribly inappropriate to reveal such a secret tonight. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy.” How intoxicating it felt—silly and sublime at once—to be witnessed, to be held for a moment in that charged gaze, and then to vanish. To dissolve into the night and reappear in that fluorescent purgatory of McDonald’s, sustaining myself upon the greasy sacrament of hashbrowns and the syrupy cloy of a bubblegum slushie. I felt like some centuries-old vampire loitering beneath the harsh blue light of the pickup counter, consuming the inedible and thinking only of the journey home.

Today, though, focus evades me. I need to draft a case study and treatment plan (due in a week), wrestle with the bones of my policy report (now on revenge porn rather than doxxing—who would have guessed the latter leaves almost no trace?), and prepare for tomorrow’s pass–fail presentation. I should feel sharpened by urgency, but I only want to lie in bed listening to the audiobook of Queen of the Damned. And of course, I must also write the Editor and Creative briefs for the magazine—deadlines the only way to keep a team intact.

My hair is wet, my face is dry, and I am logging off to lock in. Wish me luck.