Meme: https://memeguy.com/photo/335253/toxic-relationship

Writing Assignment:

As I looked at my reflection, I didn’t recognize the sickened girl before me. Her brown eyes now red and swollen, her soft skin now slick with sweat and dotted with hives, her stable hands once admired for their grace at the piano now trembling frenziedly.

 

I thought of him while I slept.

The words of affection framed by his charming smile. The spit flying from his roaring mouth.

The thoughtful flowers he gave me. The shattered vase he gave me.

The beautiful necklace he put around my neck. The violent hands he put around my neck.

Beauty. Violence.

Scientists say dreams are meant to help us sort through complicated feelings, but my brain couldn’t seem to do that when it considered him.

 

RING RING RING. I awoke from my confusion to the sound of my phone. Saved by the cell.

When I picked up, my friend’s troubled voice poured out from the other end as she tried to console me about the boy I thought I had loved but had now left.

“You know, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince” she concluded.

 

I couldn’t help but be reminded of middle school biology as I hung up, her words still settling in. I recalled our survival unit and the alluring images of vibrant, brilliantly patterned frogs, the ones most likely to attract you and to harm you.

He came to mind.

I recalled the images of individuals infected with their poison, swollen eyes, drenched in sweat, covered in bumps, and plagued by tremors.

The girl in my mirror came to mind.

Still exhausted from the night before, I fell back asleep.

 

I thought of him while I slept.

His welcoming bright white grin. The poison frog’s welcoming bright yellow skin.

My sickness from getting too close to him. The infection from getting too close to a dart frog.

The fairytale of the princess and the frog. The survival guide to toxic animals.

Scientists say dreams are meant to help us sort through complicated feelings.

 

As I awoke, I thought: if only I had been armed with something other than romanticized fairytales, with a survival guide to interacting with human and not just frogs.

I could have known which ones not to kiss.

I could have understood that some of the most entrancing ones are prepared to harm you.

I could have never been poisoned.

 

Process Notes:

The meme I picked made me consider the idea of how fairytales are largely the only medium that children interact with when learning about romantic relationships with others. In this meme there is a depiction of a princess gazing at a brightly colored frog, then kissing it, and ultimately collapsing as she has unknowingly been infected with its poison. The idea of a princess “picking the wrong frog” is never addressed in fairytales and while schools teach young children about interacting with dangerous animals in nature they tend to not teach about interacting with dangerous people. I wrote a narrative about someone who recently removed themselves from a toxic partner and is reflecting on the idea that if only they had been told about the potential for stories such as the one in this meme they could’ve avoided a great deal of pain. I thought it was interesting to show how this at first glance humorous meme could have serious undertones. Also, in thinking about the graphic novels from this week, I played with the idea of picking a few moments over the course of a few days, similar to panels, rather than writing out every moment over time to see how cohesively and completely I could represent time passing during this story in doing so. Following that, I considered the idea of whatever you are reading at the moment being “the present” in taking the same thought pattern at the beginning and end of the narrative with different conclusions being made about it later and the initial conclusions eventually becoming a part of the past.