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Stages of Choking : etymology of overcoming dysphoria by Nina Miller

September 29, 2022
Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Aspirate

Aspir/e to be great, greater than your peers. Better grades, top honors, and Ivy League dreams. Competing against competitors for the same goals. Doctor, lawyer, engineer peers. For docto/rate/s of the highest degree. Life revolves around someone else’s gravitational pull, and it’s never enough. The weight of my anger is swallowed. Overlarge pieces lodged in tight spaces. Magna, summa, cum loudly and still rate lower than someone who got into Harvard. Irate.

Asphyxiate

As/s for wondering if it was nature or nurture that made me. Following family footsteps towards medical dreams. AITA for wanting more than stereotypical success. The artist lost. Forgotten. The 80’s poster child of a model minority who forgets she is one until someone mentions it. Offhand. Backhand. Phyx/ing problems and patients while phyx/ating on future failures. Imposter syndromes. I ate my feelings, my fears, and my fries till I was “pleasantly plump” and cautioned by my parents and patients. I/r/ate! Gain weight. I ate.

Expire

Exp/ectations of marriage despite being too tall to marry. Marry well before my expir/ation date. The MRS. to follow the MD. Exp/ectation of grandchildren soon after. Exp/ecting one, then two with an option to buy in for a third. Exp/eriences lost as I dutifully des/ire/d and sought what was exp/ected. Des/ire finally came for me and challenged the norm. Family ire led to acceptance, wedding feasts, and children born of love. Exp/ected. Wanted. Expir/ation of a breath long held.

Inspire

Inspir/ation of fresh air. To breathe again in middle life. To find oneself despite familial expectations and evolve. To create opportunities for my children to thrive. To fill voids with creative passion and inspire those like myself to challenge their own definitions. To grab them around the waist, fist in hand, and thrust, thrust, thrust. Dislodging their past and moving them forward. To inspire.

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Poetry  / The Weekly

Miller, Nina
Nina Miller is an Indian-American physician, epee fencer and micro/flash fiction writer. Her work can be found in TL;DR Press's anthology, Mosaic: The Best of the 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition 2022, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Belladonna, Five Minutes, 101 words and more. Follow her @ninaMD1 and read more at www.ninamillwerwrites.com.

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