Doormat

By Sydnie Howard

Step one: Lay there like a doormat.  

With “Welcome” tattooed across your forehead No, not a real tattoo, a Sharpie will work. Or a knife. 

And remember, doormats don’t have feelings. They don’t talk back, or care, or speak up in defense or opinion. They lay there quietly and fulfill their purpose as good doormats do. They clean dirty shoes and decorate the porch in harmonious silence.  

To practice being a doormat, lay flat on your back on an expanse of hard surface, preferably concrete. Then close your eyes, and don’t move or speak for hours. Oh, you have to be outside, too, dirty doormats never go inside a practical home. A playground macadam would work for this exercise. Or the open road. 

Remember, you’re a doormat who doesn’t believe they’re a real person. Like Pinocchio, but the other way around. Your nose doesn’t grow but your world is shrunken, like a prune, or a radiated tumor. Your life is the porch you lay on. Don’t acknowledge this. Shove it away, because remember, doormats don’t think. They can’t think. 

Stop wishing you were somewhere else. He wants you there, so be there. Why are you longing for this foreign concept of a steady boat on a river of jagged rocks? You can’t hold onto water, remember, you are a doormat, it will slip through the cracks of your fibers and evaporate in the sun. Stop wishing silly things. You’re a doormat, you do not have desires. 

There is one thing you can do as a doormat. You can listen. Listen closely to the sounds of the house, the foundations creaking below you. Not so much the people stepping on you as they walk in the door, rubbing the bottoms of their Converse and Nikes on your inviting bristles. Not so much him stomping the mud off his shoes and onto your surface. That is out of the question. Listen to the house get heavier, listen to it sway. 

Several people on their way inside the house may step over you, then lean down and whisper, “He’s using you, get up and leave.” Ignore them. They do not know the hard work that goes into this practice. Be an obedient doormat, and do what doormats do, as you’ve practiced.  

“How’s that boy of yours doing?” Your mom asks. None of your business, mom, fuck off. You may feel broken, unprocessed, and even shameful. Like you are a loading screen, an old woman who can’t decide what she wants at the diner, the tortoise who didn’t beat the hare but instead got hit by a car two feet from the finish line. Like a walk of atonement, you feel graphic shameful exposure as you roll into class every day, like a ghost to your grave, to your desk.  

How is it true that somebody can dance all over me in a fit of agony and the next day swoon me with love and gifts as if there aren’t tearful footprints all over my face? How can I continue to lay on the doorstep and aid his entrance and exit at no cost but my own body and soul? Are you feeling shameful? For doing what doormats do? You’re embarrassed? What is wrong with you? You are not human, remember, you are a doormat! 

How can you allow yourself to feel so violently human after having your legs broken, your ribcage shattered, and your face stomped in? You are tarnished, used, lifeless. You lay there, screaming and spitting your words of dust and dirt. You tell a teacher, and she coddles you, and tugs you inside off the porch and into the warmth of the house. And there he goes, away. Away? Why away? Why is he leaving you? What did you do, you ungrateful doormat girl?  

Not a girl, you are not a girl. Look what you've done. 

When he left, you didn’t get up for a while, despite being inside the house. You didn’t know any better, did you? It didn’t come full circle in your doormat state of mind that it was over. I bet you feel like a stranger to yourself, to feelings of victimization, but why? Why does guilt prevail over self-actualization? Why do we lie to ourselves even after we construct our own truths? We want so badly to be understood, that we forget to understand, don’t we? You ponder on these questions for weeks. 

You are now a doormat who became dormant.  

It wasn’t until one month later that you began to cry. Such a weapon of emotion. You cried at the most obscure moments, at the most mysterious things, and you really didn’t know why. He was gone, like you always secretly wanted, and you are fine. But, I think I’m a victim. A victim? What? You’re not a victim. He never hit you, you are entirely physically out of his reach, and what he did wasn’t that bad, and—why are you still crying?  

Why are you on the edge of your seat as he enters the house, and sees you sitting straight up at your desk? Why does your heart pound so hard you can’t hear, why do you want to throw up your breakfast, why are you so jumpy when your friend asks you if you can proofread her essay? You are off his porch, and you are no longer a doormat, but why aren’t the footprints fading?  

Oh, maybe I see it now.  

You are a wild animal forced to leave your safe haven as the forests are cut down. He could look at you and you’d feel it, like a cattle prod at your back, making you jolt. You could hear his voice and the fake, excitable tones that fluctuate, and you would dissociate from reality. Focus on not focusing.  

You’re still that little girl, aren’t you?  

The one who plays in the dirt in the backyard. Belly-flops in the pool even though it hurts. Scribbles for hours in her little Perry the Platypus notebook. Rescues household bugs and delivers them back outside. Shares her Crayola crayons with her classmates. 

You’re still that little girl. 

I see now, you protected her.