girls

There is the tiniest of scars over a vein on my left wrist. It’s barely visible to the naked eye. It is the size of a freckle or a speck, but I have never lost sight of it. It’s from a pencil that I once sharpened to the finest point possible and then twisted and picked into that very small and very focused spot on my skin. I was resolved to find a way into the flesh and into the vein. I had recently heard somewhere that puncturing a vein was a way in which a person could kill themselves. I remember being very confused over how easy that seemed to accomplish but I didn’t ask for clarification. I plainly filed the fact away for further exploration. That was the first and last time I ever wanted to or attempted to end my own life.  I contemplated it for days and then made the decision. If I am being very honest, I will say that while I am grateful beyond measure that I did not succeed and that the yearning did not persist, I actually find little fault in my own reasoning at the time. Because I also know that the girl who sat there that day with a pencil in her hand was a ghost of the girl she had been just six months earlier. I was 10 years old.

By the time I was eleven years old, I wanted to be Ralph Macchio. Well, not exactly, specifically Ralph Macchio. I wanted to be Johnny from the Outsiders. The jagged, watchful, switchblade pulling, loyal companion to Ponyboy. I loved Ponyboy. And I aspired to Ponyboy, but I just wasn’t that smooth around the edges. I felt too cagey and vigilant to be as dreamy as he was. By the age of eleven my nerves were far too shot for an easy smile or to talk to anyone without looking at them sideways. I saw myself growing into Sodapop or maybe Dallas, someday. I deeply identified with the archetype of the orphaned, scrappy, responsible, sensitive and sarcastic, misunderstood survivor. All I needed was a band of (br)others who also understood that we were living our lives on a battlefield.
Read more May we all stay gold by @_ssml