Dear God by Rhyme Zhou (17, China)*

Dear God,

Last night I woke suddenly, startled awake by some small sound. I lay there, half asleep and frightened, thinking that perhaps it had nothing at all, but a tiny crackling noise said otherwise. It was something else that made me pause—a human sound, a quick intake of breath. God, my doctors said I was just being anxious and was stuck in Maladaptive Daydreaming again. It was another word of delusion—they said I was sick. But why, in the silences and muffled wind sounds, could I imagine each gesture and caress that I knew was taking place?

---

It’s difficult to admit that you’re sick. The eerie gaze and microaggressions aren’t the worst part; an ongoing, extreme self reflection of thinking what I did wrong was. Perhaps it was because I was too harsh on my academics in junior year, because I read too many intense thrillers about obsession in quarantine even though everyone said not to, or because I lied to my grandparents that I would spend time with them in summer but I had no intention to do so? God, my mother insisted taking me to see a Chinese herbalist doctor next week. I don’t quite believe in traditional Chinese medicine because of its obscurity. Remembering the names of Eucommia ulmoides Oliver, Ginkgo biloba L, and Saigae Tataricae Cornu Powder in my medicine already makes me nauseous.

My dear God, I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful kid. Believe me, I want to get better but I just cannot seem to figure out what went wrong. Late at night, I would take a shower, lie in bed, open FaceTime, scroll down, and spend minutes staring. I would rub the first name repeatedly with my thumb, picturing how my mom’s phone rings, lights up with my name, and brings her car to a sudden stop. She genuinely cared about me; I knew that. I want to make her proud; she knows that. But I still have not learned what to share and how to share after 17 years—I would silently turn off the phone, trying to find some excuses for my reticence.

I think too damn much. Only freshness of the outside world could dissolve my inner struggles, screaming, and weeping—it blends with the drops left on the leaves on rainy days, paces of running footsteps, shapes of rising smoke, and the swirling afternoon laundry. I can be so passionate about the most mundane things, relishing the infinity of a silenced pause, but I also want to be heard. I want to pick up every detail of those frightening dreams and perceptions at night, to decode them, and to express myself again. I want to express my tenderness towards my mother, my imagination, and the silence that made me and her, me and my past self, two parallel lines—all of us struggled to intercept, but were only left with the same old fatigue. And perhaps, like how gravity pulls all things in the universe to their own trajectories, silence will be granted a new meaning. Perhaps I will feel a hand in the deep water or the abyss. Perhaps I will adjust my breathing, floats up, and stretch out my body without rushing. I will, God, quietly observe this new world, uncertain but tranquil. I will kick my feet violently out of fear and accelerate the speed of ascent. At one point, my head will emerge above the water. At that moment, a voice will loom up with waves surging beyond shipwreck.

And I will not be paranoid. There will be no crackling noise, just a gulf of pure silence—the kind that I feel comfortable in.​