I get really sad sometimes.
When I get really sad I think about my two options:
1. Fake my own death
or
2. Cause my own death.
When I was 15 I would bang my head against a wall
because I couldn't remember what the square root of math was. To me, Pi equaled 3.14 seconds of time it would take to eat an actual pie.
It equaled apples, peaches, pumpkin, chicken pot pie, cutie pie, pie hole, bye bye Miss American - pie.
It made zero sense to a zero like me.
If I am greater than X, than Y did we break up?
"Just solve the equation!" the teacher cries.
And I try to think in digits but instead, it turns into
The number of nights we ran into the ocean, screaming.
The number of times I fell in love with boys.
The number of times I fell in love with girls.
The number of times we fell into each others arms, with our chins on each other's left shoulders "because" she said,
"that way our hearts can touch".
The number of seconds it took for our blazing bodies to collapse onto grass, or sand, or mattress.
Fingers in mouths, fingers in noses, fingers in toasters, fingers inside everything but text books.
The number of days he stopped looking into my eyes.
The number of times my parents were "disappointed" in my behavior.
The number of pills I took to stop banging my head against the wall because
I was so sad about numbers.
About a year and half ago, I got really sad again.
People on the internet "hurt my feelings" and I let them.
While my "friends" IRL were out feasting with kings, I was left alone, a knight in a cave, knees shaking.
I always thought I was sad about numbers, but now words?
Out of nowhere, this shrewd oppressor, Billy Bully, reaches out from my monitor
and sucker-punches me right in the jaw. He then grabs me by the collar of my shirt and says
"listen to me, girl. you're dirt."
As it turns out, the negativity has a face, and in that moment it was my own twisted grimace.
I had been gazing into a mirror of contempt and insecurity that became valid because I heard things
like
"I just wanna bend her over my lap like the slut she is.
That girl sounds a lot better on mute.
She's getting so fat.
This girl is dumb.
Get a nose job,
get a boob job,
get a better job.
Kill yourself."
Kill yourself...
They say sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.
Well, that's not true.
Words are what made me pick up a knife, and I held it to my throat in
a moment of weakness.
And I imagined those faceless people, the ones that were tearing me to shreds, and I thought 'Who hurt them this badly?' This was never even about me!
Why are we all so nauseatingly affected?
When the knife falls to the floor, barely missing my bare feet,
I blow kisses to my reflection,
because all I'm missing is balance.
Instead of reaching for something
to hurt me, I reach for something to help me, and sometimes,
pills do because maybe some of us are wired differently,
I refuse to hide my sadness,
I'll wear it as a badge of courage in my fight for happiness,
and it's okay if a Prozac a day keeps the monsters at bay
because when I'm sitting alone at a coffee shop and I look up
from my book,
I think, 'wow, this is what normal feels like'.
Words, both callous or cordial, are just words.
And, you know, numbers aren't so bad either!
Like the number of times he simultaneously held my hand and the steering wheel.
The number of times my parents told me how proud they are of the woman I've become.
The number of laughs my sister and I shared as we ate pie straight out of the garbage can at 1am.
"So, what's the problem?" the universe asks.
I reply with this: "The left side of my brain departed from the station traveling at a speed of 65 miles per hour. Later,
The right side of my brain departed from the station traveling in the opposite direction of the left, it was going 75 miles per hour.
After the left side had traveled for one thousand seven hundred and eighty days, it was only a few miles away from the right side.
How long did it take for both sides of my brain to man up and get back on those pills?"
The answer?
Asking "are we there yet?" when we hadn't even left the driveway.
