Assistant Editor Blessing Christopher: Nicki Youngsma’s miCRo explores the edges of discomfort and surrender. The author defines a loaded term in multiple ways before anchoring the word to a heartrending image.
Listen to Youngsma’s reading of the piece
Boundary: A Definition
Boundary [BOUN-duh-ree,-dree], noun (plural boundaries) 1. a line where one thing ends and another thing begins, like a fence or an ocean shore—or an intangible, artificial delineation, such as a city limit or state line, or a national border demanding passports for dignity and stepping across the earth; 2. a limit, such as the edge of one’s skin, thoughts, dreams; that threshold between the Self and the outside world, including but not limited to other human beings and their own thoughts, behaviors, feelings. Depending on the situation and people involved, this outside world may or may not crash like terse waves into said Self, transgressing a felt sense of sovereignty, wholeness, intactness, a concept which is intangible yet real . . . very real. So real that dismissing a whale-road’s undue encroachment will devastate said Self, little by little, bit by bit. Rubbing the Self away like it’s weathered rock. Pebbles. Sand. Until it becomes one with the water and lies wrecked, lost to echoes of itself, indistinguishable from the tide that wore it down.
Nicki Youngsma is a writer and illustrator, and her service work includes building horticultural education nonprofits and raising young people. Her writing has appeared in Unbroken and Inglenook Lit, and she is currently working on a memoir project. Find her at nickiyoungsma.com.
