Dragonflies: A Discourse on AnxietyBy Lara Lillibridge
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I wonder if a dragonfly caught in a glass jar would make that same buzz I feel in my chest. Four churning wings, operating in two free-wheeling pairs, battering against the mason jar might sound the same as I feel. And I am frozen on top of the covers, agitating at an inaudible frequency.
***
Stop, revise, dragonflies breathe through their anus. You don’t want anyone to think you are comparing yourself to that, do you? Make it a damselfly. The word sounds more feminine, and they are slimmer, their eyes are spaced further apart, therefore they are more winsome and if you insist on using insects as metaphors why not choose the prettiest one? And have you not always wanted to be a damsel in distress, rescued by a fetching knight on a handsome steed?
But damselflies are bound up in memories of falling in love next to a creek in summer, watching them dance above water so clear I could see the moss on submerged rocks undulate in the gentle current. Anyway, damselflies are able to fold their wings while resting, and therefore when captive might not be quite so insistent. And not everyone knows what a damselfly is, or what they look like, and I couldn’t bear for a reader to render it as a deerfly, bottle fly, or God forbid, a common house fly. Besides, damsels are always liberated eventually—no one rescues the dragon. And that breathing through the anus thing? Anxiety is the most effective diuretic I have ever experienced. Perhaps anal breathing is a disturbing image but that does not make it less fitting.
Swirling battering agitation it does not wait patiently for rescue it uselessly knocks against the glass frantically breathing through its ass knowing no one ever rescues the dragon fearing I am really the dragon not the damsel eyes bulging with 30,000 facets always looking 360 degrees watching you coming and going with hindsight’s judgment emphasis on judge wrong bad dragon fire breath backwashes to your stomach pit of embers turning you to ash smoke rises burning your throat wings beat uselessly frantically four wings in asynchronous opposition.
But damselflies are bound up in memories of falling in love next to a creek in summer, watching them dance above water so clear I could see the moss on submerged rocks undulate in the gentle current. Anyway, damselflies are able to fold their wings while resting, and therefore when captive might not be quite so insistent. And not everyone knows what a damselfly is, or what they look like, and I couldn’t bear for a reader to render it as a deerfly, bottle fly, or God forbid, a common house fly. Besides, damsels are always liberated eventually—no one rescues the dragon. And that breathing through the anus thing? Anxiety is the most effective diuretic I have ever experienced. Perhaps anal breathing is a disturbing image but that does not make it less fitting.
Swirling battering agitation it does not wait patiently for rescue it uselessly knocks against the glass frantically breathing through its ass knowing no one ever rescues the dragon fearing I am really the dragon not the damsel eyes bulging with 30,000 facets always looking 360 degrees watching you coming and going with hindsight’s judgment emphasis on judge wrong bad dragon fire breath backwashes to your stomach pit of embers turning you to ash smoke rises burning your throat wings beat uselessly frantically four wings in asynchronous opposition.
***
I am supposed to write something about beauty here. About iridescent green-blue or magenta-violet or yellow-orange. About how dragonflies see UV light and more colors than we know exist. How their bodies are the color of fire and sunset and peaceful night skies, something about cellophane wings that are strikingly delicate in their strength. You expect a discourse on nymphs emerging into adults, water-born creatures ascending to great heights.
All I have to give you are futile frenzied wings beating against glass, moving too quickly to be discerned. It is only when we place it on the pinning block and impale it through the thorax that we can examine the fragility behind the motion, but we will need a magnifying glass and a notebook to record our observations. If you are kind, a cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover will kill our specimen within an hour, after you drop it into the glass jar.
All I have to give you are futile frenzied wings beating against glass, moving too quickly to be discerned. It is only when we place it on the pinning block and impale it through the thorax that we can examine the fragility behind the motion, but we will need a magnifying glass and a notebook to record our observations. If you are kind, a cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover will kill our specimen within an hour, after you drop it into the glass jar.
Lara Lillibridge sings off-beat and dances off-key. She writes a lot, and sometimes even likes how it turns out.
Her memoir, Girlish, available for preorder on Amazon, is slated for release Nov. 7, 2017 with Skyhorse Publishing.
Lara Lillibridge is a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College’s MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. In 2016 she won Slippery Elm Literary Journal’s Prose Contest, and The American Literary Review's Contest in Nonfiction. She also was a finalist in both Black Warrior Review’s Nonfiction Contest and DisQuiet’s Literary Prize in Creative Nonfiction. She has had essays published in Pure Slush Vol. 11, Vandalia, and Polychrome Ink; on the web at Hippocampus, Crab Fat Magazine, Luna Luna, Huffington Post, The Feminist Wire, Airplane Reading, Thirteen Ways to Tell a Story, Weirderary, and Brain, Child magazine's Brain, Mother blog.