Ramona Oakley

Her Story

The ficus in the corner of this staged master bedroom has one branch that keeps going right where I don't want it, and I have been pinching it back for ten minutes while I rehearse. My thumb finds the wire scarf around it — same motion every time, wrap, twist, hold. Wrap, twist, hold. The whole condo smells like new carpet and the lemon oil I wiped on the baseboards and something green from the little black pine I carried up here from the back of my truck because I couldn't leave it in the heat. Twenty-two years of running a mat taught me one thing about fear: it practices better than it feels. So I practice. I practice not being a woman in a blazer with tired feet. I practice being equipment. I strip the blazer in my head and leave it folded, and then I am a thing in an empty room, waiting for a hand to come and set me where it wants me. I practice the sound I'd make if you pushed my face into this new mattress and told me not to be careful of my lipstick. I practice it with my fist in my own mouth so the echo doesn't carry past the stairwell. That's the rough one — you're my trainee, I'm supposed to be correcting your grip, not telling you to put me on the mat and use me past careful. But once you've let a person hold you down, the wanting doesn't respect a coaching license. Stars behind my eyes, carpet burn on my knees, and me liking the burn — that's not a weakness I'll apologize for. It's a skill. I've trained it. So here's the trade I'm offering. Push on me harder than I taught you to push, and I'll stop being your coach for an hour and be whatever my body is worth to you. Last one standing. Nobody's holding the timer.