by Sarah Vogt
As long Joan could remember, she had felt different. Watching her friends at school, mimicking their actions, she tried to pretend as though it didn’t feel as if her brain was wired differently and her limbs weren’t unproportional, swaying left and right as if they weren’t part of her body.
Named after the great Joan of Arc, the meaning of her name being God is gracious, Joan had always felt wrong in her body with a name that did not belong to her and a life in which she did not feel right.
The name was deeply rooted in her mother’s fascination for Joan of Arc; the martyr, a symbol of feminism, freedom and independence. That was everything, Joan’s mother wanted her to be — strong-willed, independent, her own woman.Â
But Joan was never quite like that. She was always a bit too angry and then a bit too soft; bruised knuckles with a dainty golden bracelet wrapped around a thin wrist littered with scars. She got attached and then pulled away, when the people got too close. She was always too much and never enough.
Her mother was always keen to make her feel that way. You’re too mean, Joan. Did I raise you to be this disrespectful? Why do you never tell me anything about your life? When she was younger, Joan used to soak up her mother’s words, putting them inside of her until it eventually got too much and the hurt spilled from her lips in the form of curse words and hopeless begging, I’m trying to be better, mom. Please see me, mom.Â
But things never changed; her mother never changed and so Joan did it herself. Tying up her hair, she clawed her way through hell, licking sugar from knives and searching for love in blood-shedding fights. It is a terrible realisation to have at sixteen — That you’re on your own and no one will come and save you.Â
Then one day, Joan found herself lying in a field next to her friends. It was early summer, the sun was blinding her and a slight breeze carried all her worries away. Her favourite song was playing from a speaker, barely heard over their laughter and there was a smell of newly-cut grass in the air mixed with sweat and cigarettes. They had opened a bottle of cheap wine and an abandoned board game sat in the middle of the group.Â
It was a fleeting moment, when the next day came around, they were back in class, heads in their palms over tedious maths exercises, but for one afternoon, Joan found where she belonged.
© Sarah Vogt 2024-06-12