I’m not I’m not I’m not a baby
by
Dev Murphy
Dev Murphy’s writing and artwork have appeared in publications such as ANMLY, Diagram, The Guardian, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Originally born in Northeast Ohio, she now lives and works in Pittsburgh.
Cover and interior art by Dev Murphey.
from I’m not I’m not I’m not a baby
Excerpt from “One Cool Rock”
Old fears: the dark; hell; loneliness. New fears: coughing; the future; the dark; bears; crowds; loneliness. In the new world with the new changes I am suffering. I am saying to everyone, Did it just get louder in here or is it me? And everyone is saying, It is you. (Of course, when we exchange words, we are adding to the noise: it is not me.) / Nick is suffering, too. He was adopted during the pandemic, you see. 24/7 access to me is his norm, and now that the world is returning to its norm his little heart is broken. / I usually sleep with tiny lights shaped like stars on but they hurt S’s head sometimes so we shut them off and I feel so crushed by darkness I believe I will die. I admit: sleeping in the dark is an impossible task when I am alone. / My older sister who lives out of state has trouble leaving the house so I tell her Go to the woods and don’t come back until you have found One Cool Rock. Giving advice on how to act less like myself makes me feel less like myself. But I think there are more people who need a mission in order to leave the house than we realize, pandemic or not. / My apartment is swathed in beige so I bought plants and colorful rugs and now I want to leave the house even less frequently. / I get a remote job as a copyeditor. I spend the day editing self- help books in my pajamas while Nick sits on my lap. I’m not doing much that is special. I know, logically, that does not mean I am not worthy of love. / Because I often feel overcome by the weight of my failures, E advises me to construct a comfort list, which is what her therapist advised her to do. So this is my comfort list: star-shaped lights, colorful rugs, nice-looking rocks, the singing mice from Babe, the old man who walked into the mummy wing at the history museum once and said It smells like a church in here. The rest of the day all I could think of was that man, and of the care given to a dummy’s plaster foot tucked away under a turning wheel: the flour-soft tan line veeing the top of the toes.
