Written by Kelly Murashige
For the first time in years, I’m wearing your hoodie.
Well, not your hoodie. It wasn’t quite yours. You bought it for me from a street pop-up shop, one crosswalk away from your lecture hall. I never tried it on, but you knew it would fit. That’s how big it is, or else how small I am. I know which explanation you would prefer.
You thought it was funny. The hoodie’s design. It was all black, save for the patch in the middle. Two cartoon worms formed the shape of a heart, their heads conked together in deep affection.
I never asked if you’d love me if I were a worm. You would have. I knew it. You lived for me.
I’m not bragging here. Not proud. You loved me for reasons I tried to control.
You would have loved me if I’d been a worm. Sometimes, I worry you’d have loved me more. If I’d been a worm, I could have slipped through your fingers. Yet, I would have been strong enough to choose to stay.
When you gifted me the hoodie, in your grad-school dorm, you insisted on seeing me wear it right then. Moving quickly, you pulled it over my head and tugged it down. Your fingers traced the bones of my rib cage.
“I like it,” you told me. “You look so tiny. It’s like you’re swimming in all of me.”
I smiled and thanked you. Gave you a peck on the cheek. All while I thought: I think I’m drowning.
I never told you, but that hoodie’s what did it. Once alone, I looked up if earthworms could drown.
They can’t. An earthworm can survive for days underwater.
I wasn’t a worm. I could never be. The only traits that earthworms and I have in common are that we are blind. That we feel too much. That we will grovel at the feet of those who can destroy us.
After the breakup, I grieved you like you’d died. When I lost weight by accident, all I could think was: He’d like me so much better this way. You would have worshipped my body. Kissed the straight lines. Pressed your fingers into me until I was remolded.
Have you ever seen two earthworms mating before?
I have. I looked it up myself. I just had to know.
They melt into each other. That’s how it looks. Like they have become this amorphous blob. It’s awful, really. I’m sure you’d love it. You’ve always admired the grotesque and strange.
I miss you sometimes. Miss how you loved me. Sometimes, I consider reaching back out. Giving myself over to you one last time.
You’d make it painful. You’d make it hurt. You’d say you still love me, then break me again. Make me so tiny, I would disappear.
I still do not fill all the gaps in this hoodie. You would be happy about that, I know.
Well, someday, I might. One day in the future, after stretching myself, I will become something you’d find monstrous. You will hate me, and I might sometimes hate myself too, but I’ll take up space, and I’ll be so proud.
I’m not a worm. Nor am I drowning. I do not have you. I’m not part of you. I’m living. I’m floating. I grow every day.
.
Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Kelly Murashige is the author of the award-winning YA novels The Lost Souls of Benzaiten and The Yomigaeri Tunnel. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. Though she can be shy, she loves obsessing over books, video games, and strange animals.