This angel I used to know that
disguised herself as a therapist once told me that I experience life in real
time and then I go home to write about it as a means to process and cope. Per
usual, she was not incorrect. So when my 15-year-old cousin developed a habit
of calling me to discuss the drama and trauma in her life— eerily
reminiscent of my own childhood—I aggressively urged her to start a blog. Sometimes
we have secrets and stressors that are so deep-seated we need a mine canary to
let us know danger is lurking. If not, one might resort to self-harm in the
most insidious ways.
- Have you ever drank so much UV Blue that you blacked out and walked into a barbwire fence and earned mutilating scars all over your body?
- Have you ever put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of by a strange man and when you confront him about your discomfort he says, “I told you I would sleep on the floor”?
- Have you ever went into your friend’s house when they weren’t there and veered directly to their stash of weed and helped yourself to a handful because, after all, you’re sure they wouldn’t mind?
- Have you ever sat in the living room of a busted trailer at 2am with a taken-apart disposable razor listening to Beautiful by Eminem and It's Been Awhile by Staind while you make ten even, parallel lines in your skin because your brother is on meth and your mom has depression (so she sleeps a lot) and your dad loathes you and your other brother lives in his own isolated world that doesn't include you & your needs?
You know what I do even when I do
not feel like it? Live. Exist. Be here. Physically. Because mentally I stay living in
the past: every mistake, every faux pas, every flaw, every mean word that’s
left my mouth, every heart I ever hurt, every tear that was the result of my
arrogance. The all of it. What did Relient K say? Who I am hates who I’ve been.
For the last… oh, let’s say three
years, I’ve referred to myself in third-person. I’d be like, “Old Nessie would have slapped the shit
out of that girl at the club who, when I said, ‘Can I get a drink?’ (because
she was standing in between me and the bar) looked at me sideways and was all, ‘I’m
not the bartender.’” Wig. I was telling my old-man-friend a story that involved
this third-person ritual and he brought to my attention that it’s just a defense
mechanism. By extracting myself from previous, fucked-up situations, I disassociate and be replaced. It wasn’t me that did those things, said those things. It was her. The other me. The un-me. Portuguese
poet/writer/philosopher Fernando Pessoa said, “Ah, who will save me from
existing? It’s neither death nor life that I want.” 10/10, sir. Can relate.