a flailing attempt at self reinvention

photo not mine; sculpture by daniel arsham

If I reinvented myself, I could be anyone, everyone, and no one. 

I could move to Mesquite and not tell anyone who I really am. If they ask, I would tell them my name is Natasha, because that is the name I use when I call into crisis hotlines. I would tell them I do not have any family, because isn’t that just a spin of the truth. I would learn to ride horses well and pick up cigarettes and meth as a casual hobby. Temptation lurks because the all-consuming nature of addiction and sobriety whispers offers of liberation from the chokehold of other battles. In Mesquite, I would honor my body by partaking in the vices they say should only be done once, because that practice brings me closer to the truth of the universe. Not because drugs makes you reflective, but because suicide makes you Existential.

I could take long strolls in the Texas desert until the flies mistake me for a rotting corpse. I do not like the heat, but maybe it could teach me a thing or two about patience. Heat makes me delirious, but so does fear, so what’s the difference. Fear is debilitating, but the only thing that freezes time. Time is a construct, so why am I alive. 

I have seen firsthand what fear can do. Fear eliminated Katya Zamolodchikova from season seven. Fear is taking ten years off my life. And fear gripped our nation so hard we all bowed. 

Perhaps Mesquite is not a good idea; I had placed unfounded faith in the East Bay after all. Perhaps I could take a one-way flight to Mexico City. There, I would not have to tell anyone who I am because if they ask, I would not know enough Spanish to tell them anyways. I would get lost in the art and only see the dark side of the moon. By now, I would have learned my lesson; I would not venture outside in the heat anymore, existing only in the nocturnal shadows of the night. I would wander around closed art galleries and wonder how Diana Atri bore that year of uncertainty and grief. I would peer inside her gallery windows to search for the answer, only to find the eyes of misalignment looking back at me, taunting me, as my biggest fear. 

In Mexico City, my time would be short, because Joy returned to Diana and I am stuck in 2012 repeating the same song verse: “¿Cuánto tiempo tardará? ¿O no es para todos? ¿Por qué de mí se esconderá?” I would then switch playlists, opting for some Chappell Roan instead. But her music would immediately remind me of why I am away from California in the first place—because of my inability to reassociate her music. This is when I would realize that my time here is up, so I would book a one-way flight to Nashville. Home of good music and Paramore. Maybe Nashville seems like an obvious choice because Paramore’s music has always spoken to my soul. But really, I would be clutching Steve Rogers’ locket of Peggy, too afraid to wander into the next big city over, wondering why I am sentenced to the same fate. 

Perhaps Nashville is not the answer, but Budapest. My name is Natasha after all. In this city, I would truly be nobody. The only appropriate course of action would be to locate the place where Yelena and Natasha reconvened. They never gave Natasha Romanoff a lasting love interest, but had her save the world. 

You cannot reinvent yourself. Moving to Saskatchewan only exists within the fantasmal confines of a song. Not Mesquite, nor Mexico City, nor Nashville can heal my fear; it cannot ease my grief; it cannot save my life. Therefore, it is only fitting if I lay down in the Hungarian soil to decompose with the rotting shrubs that surround me, returning to the ground as if I never existed. 

I cannot reinvent myself.