Viking

When I was 17, I sat in my spot up against the immaculate refrigerator devoid of my drawings, in a tiny kitchen in Queens where I did all my homework. I quietly announced I wanted to attend Central St. Martins and the London College of Fashion in England. "You can't leave the house until you are married," they said. "What?!" I exclaimed, "no one's even ever seen me!"

But that was the end of it. I was allowed to pick from the two colleges that were either a 15 minute walk or a 15 minute bus ride from the solid brick house that was my father's dream.

Now I have my degrees and don't need another one. Still, signing up for short courses at CSM and LCF felt epic, all these decades later. Despite that I learned things I wish I didn't know. It went something like this:

Once my foot was over the threshold of CSM the pinprick of light that had always taunted me from a million miles away in a darkness with no bounds - illuminated everything. This, here, had hard edges and a floor;

I can smell the earth in my muslin. It grounds every invisible curve, every shape, gives it a body then there is another body it goes with so now it lives. I pin it to make sure.

The first day I only saw one other person that was older than me. She had deep square grooves in her face like a cobra's. Her hair had turned the color of anchovies and it spiked free in all directions but with clear intent voiced by a regiment of tightly woven plaits -

my Viking sister in a long black leather trench.

Despite unflinching steely eyes, I could see she was hungry too.

"Ya, Ima break some shit," I said softly to myself.