You wouldn’t look at me and think: that girl at barely thirteen poured herself a glass of whiskey in her empty house and downed it, standing next to her kitchen sink, in one giant gulp with nothing more than a wince. No, that’s right, you wouldn’t. It wasn’t the last time either.
It starts out small, the road to self destruction, that is. First you begin with Jack becoming your friend; our relationship didn’t last too long. Then one day, honestly it could be any given day, you are standing in the shower the light hits the razor just right. It only escalates from there.
A week later: mid-august, you’re sporting a long sleeved jacket and a row of cuts on your arm. You never thought you’d be this person. You never wanted this, but we never want bad things to happens, do we? It wasn’t for attention, no one ever found out. At first, I was hasty, unaware, and just plain inexperienced. A few times people saw, but not enough to draw any substantial conclusions.
Last ten minutes of a Spanish exam: freak out begins to happen, you push up your sleeves, it is a natural reflex. One lonely gash is shown, your neighbor shuts up, lets out a tiny gasp and stutters: “What happened?”
“Oh, nothing. You know me, clumsy as hell. I knocked the damn towel hanger in the bathroom.”
“It looks pretty bad.”
“It isn’t.” You put down your pencil and push your exam aside; the crazy Spanish teacher is staring at you now. You get an ‘excessive talking’ on your next report card. You laugh.
Its funny how everybody acts so concerned, but in reality, they could care less. They have their own problems. People accept lies because they are scared of the truth. They didn’t truly want to know, they never want to know.
Typical next step: meet boy, start crushing, and want to change for him even though he has no clue about your past or present habits. My boy, ah, he was bad news. I just didn’t know it, or didn’t want to realize it, until it was too late. You think you found someone decent, someone who likes you back. Instead you get someone who plays tricks with your mind and once you are in an actual relationship half his words borderline on verbal abuse. The other half of the time he is calling you beautiful and holding your hand in class. The latter part is what you tell your friends.
You stop, but it isn’t for him. It isn’t for anyone. It isn’t even for yourself, and once you decide to be honest with yourself, months after quitting, you remember that you still keep a stash of your dirty razors tucked away in a jewelry box.
Honestly, once it gets in you, it’s a part of you, forever. Do not even try to kid yourself that you can overcome your bad habits and turn into a sweet girl again. You can hold that persona just fine; there is no difficulty in that. Other people are fools and will believe anything you put in front of them. You however, cannot fool yourself.
You will begin one destructive habit after another, I did. It will not seem like it, but it is. Fooling around with a guy you’ve known a few weeks, you sure as hell aren’t in love, but he turns you on and you love his touch so it’s okay. It’s okay until you start considering your status as a slut. You’re many things, but you aren’t a slut. You will not be labeled as that. Too late, you’re mind has already done so.
That doesn’t mean you stop, you move even faster. Things can hurt but they feel good, that makes up for it. This is the moment when you shrug. This is the moment where you nod in your head silently and then shout out, “I never!” as your voice trails off.
You’re a joke, but no one knows it. It didn’t feel wrong, it didn’t. You never lied about that. You just happened to not mention the part about it not feeling right. There is such a thing as neutrality. Something isn’t necessarily right if it isn’t wrong. And when something feels good, you stop thinking about what it doesn’t feel like.
The morning after feeling, this settles in mere hours later in actuality. You regret things, but can’t stop thinking about them. Everything is regret to you, and then he tells you his feelings.
“I am a slut, a fool, and I feel used.” This is your new personal quote.
No one is spared of being used. No one is that lucky. You will feel it; mine as well get it over with, even if it was unintentional.
You have a history, I have a history, we all have histories. Our physically and emotional scars are the map to ourselves.
You’re selfish to everyone and “sorry” blurts out of your mouth, it is a reaction, not an apology. When will people ever learn?
When will I ever learn to pick up all the pills I drop? One rolled under a dresser, another nestled itself inside a shoe. If I wasn’t so obsessive someone would’ve found out. I’m clumsy and nervous twitches and screwing caps do not mix well.
Popping pills like clockwork is no way to live, but it keeps you living, and that counts for something. It’s just a phase, you’ll be through it shortly enough. Tiny green pills, oval white ones, aspirin, sleeping pills; they are all the same to you anymore, a technicolor blur you’ve created for yourself.
The truth is we all reach a point of desperation. Mine? I was willing to sleep with any guy who had an eight ball of coke. We are our actions. The promises we make to ourselves, to others, to God really are just hopes. We promise what we hope for. We act according to our fears. I am nothing more than every fear I have ever possessed, or will ever have.
I will always find it ironic that I felt more alive when I wanted to die, than I do now, when the thing I want the most is to feel alive.
There is a point in life where you get bored, and out of desperation you do anything to stir up the norm. You reach a point when you just exist, without true pain or true happiness; you are apathetic to your own being. You would do anything to stop that feeling. I am not saying that is the reason for my past, or the past you are still attempting to hide for your friends, family, lover. But I am saying this is a point where you drink to the past, because it’s all you got.
This is to Jack, and that shiny little razor, to the boy who destroyed me and the one who took something from me. This is to the pills I’ll sneak into the kitchen at 4 AM to steal. We all start somewhere, and where I started was a cold, January night in an empty house with a bottle of whiskey and a glass firmly grasped. | 
