i feel stupid and contagious
Dangerous.
"I knew what he wanted to hear. He couldn't stand me being sick. Nobody can. They only want to hear that you're healing, you're in recovery, taking it one day at a time. If you're locked into sick, you should stop wasting their time and just get dead."
- Laurie Halse Anderson
"Let's talk about the cutting."
Yes, let's. It's what they always ask about, like it's not almost normal and two out of three people his age have't done it at least once, either fuck-you-mom-and-dad or dress rehearsals for Suicide, act one, scene one. Maybe it's just where he grew up and the hopeless, impotent despair that rural poverty breeds, but he can count on one hand the number of people at home who never tried it.
And everyone knew everyone's business, back there.
"When did it start?"
"Don't remember." He remembers the exact date. That sense of relief--taking the pain and shaping it into something he could wrap his hands around and twist, like a Barbie doll. "I must have been twelve." He wears that number like a badge of honour, like anything that happens before you hit your teens has to be real, not a product of the dreamland fantasy-world adults think teenagers just fever-dream.
"How often?"
He looks down at his arms, which are covered by the sweatshirt and long shirts he's taken to wearing again. He's only wearing the bandages because no one wants to see his scars -- the long, vertical ones that telegraph clearly please stay calm, this is not a test. They don't make him roll them up so they can see, anymore; they know he does it, just like they know it's not a for-real thing anymore. It's not healthy but it's not deadly either and there are only so many battles you can fight. Take your pills. Eat your food. Don't kill yourself. Don't kill anyone else. "Every day. For a while. Then nothing. Then every day again."
Sometimes it's the only thing that works.
"Why did it start?"
What an elementary question. She means: what triggered you. There are so many things to choose from -- the pain, uncontrollable and terrifying; Mama's slow decay, Daddy's disapproval; a growing sense of ennui; a genetic predisposition to addiction to pain endorphins; maybe he was just born broken.
"What kind of feelings trigger it?"
He could write a book. Sometimes it's boredom. Nothing else to do -- at least you can feel alive for a while. It's an outlet for sadness, dripping it out from under your skin, blood-letting your feelings until everything comes back into sharp focus and you can breathe again, no longer strangled by it. It's sitting in your bedroom staring at your boarded up windows for three days, unmoving, waiting for a reason. One phone call. One text message. One happy birthday message. Tell me not to do this.
When they don't come, you could jump.
"I used to cover up. So no one would see."
She follows that lead, focused, interested, because it's better to go where he takes her than try to push for an opening he isn't ready to show her, and if she sounds bored, he'll stop talking again. "Why did you stop?"
They say you can tell the ones who are really serious from the ones who just want attention by whether they hide it, and it carries a judgment. If you show anyone, if you ask for help, you want the attention. You have to die or try to die before anyone takes you seriously, and even then -- even then, not always. It was too much of a gamble, so he covered his arms, everyone knew why, because of the scars -- the ones on his hands, no one really wanted to look at them. Not all open and oozing, so big you could look through them and see heaven. From covering the hands, it was a short jump to covering the arms, and then the legs, and then everything, don't look at me, everyone look at me, don't look at me, everyone look at me. Either way they stared, but he could tell them lies. I'm a burn victim. I was in a terrible fire and had to get skin grafts all over my body and all they could save was my face. I'm a leper. I'm an albino. I have skin cancer. I have the plague, I'm covered in boils.
The first time he took them off for someone else who didn't ask, it was all knots in the stomach and the tightness around the spine that terror evokes. The second, just fascinated curiosity, like conducting a social experiment, and defiance, a reclaiming of the self from any prying eyes or judgment calls. The third, a growing sense of apathy, because --
"I realized no one noticed."
Why? Why not.
"I knew what he wanted to hear. He couldn't stand me being sick. Nobody can. They only want to hear that you're healing, you're in recovery, taking it one day at a time. If you're locked into sick, you should stop wasting their time and just get dead."
- Laurie Halse Anderson
"Let's talk about the cutting."
Yes, let's. It's what they always ask about, like it's not almost normal and two out of three people his age have't done it at least once, either fuck-you-mom-and-dad or dress rehearsals for Suicide, act one, scene one. Maybe it's just where he grew up and the hopeless, impotent despair that rural poverty breeds, but he can count on one hand the number of people at home who never tried it.
And everyone knew everyone's business, back there.
"When did it start?"
"Don't remember." He remembers the exact date. That sense of relief--taking the pain and shaping it into something he could wrap his hands around and twist, like a Barbie doll. "I must have been twelve." He wears that number like a badge of honour, like anything that happens before you hit your teens has to be real, not a product of the dreamland fantasy-world adults think teenagers just fever-dream.
"How often?"
He looks down at his arms, which are covered by the sweatshirt and long shirts he's taken to wearing again. He's only wearing the bandages because no one wants to see his scars -- the long, vertical ones that telegraph clearly please stay calm, this is not a test. They don't make him roll them up so they can see, anymore; they know he does it, just like they know it's not a for-real thing anymore. It's not healthy but it's not deadly either and there are only so many battles you can fight. Take your pills. Eat your food. Don't kill yourself. Don't kill anyone else. "Every day. For a while. Then nothing. Then every day again."
Sometimes it's the only thing that works.
"Why did it start?"
What an elementary question. She means: what triggered you. There are so many things to choose from -- the pain, uncontrollable and terrifying; Mama's slow decay, Daddy's disapproval; a growing sense of ennui; a genetic predisposition to addiction to pain endorphins; maybe he was just born broken.
"What kind of feelings trigger it?"
He could write a book. Sometimes it's boredom. Nothing else to do -- at least you can feel alive for a while. It's an outlet for sadness, dripping it out from under your skin, blood-letting your feelings until everything comes back into sharp focus and you can breathe again, no longer strangled by it. It's sitting in your bedroom staring at your boarded up windows for three days, unmoving, waiting for a reason. One phone call. One text message. One happy birthday message. Tell me not to do this.
When they don't come, you could jump.
"I used to cover up. So no one would see."
She follows that lead, focused, interested, because it's better to go where he takes her than try to push for an opening he isn't ready to show her, and if she sounds bored, he'll stop talking again. "Why did you stop?"
They say you can tell the ones who are really serious from the ones who just want attention by whether they hide it, and it carries a judgment. If you show anyone, if you ask for help, you want the attention. You have to die or try to die before anyone takes you seriously, and even then -- even then, not always. It was too much of a gamble, so he covered his arms, everyone knew why, because of the scars -- the ones on his hands, no one really wanted to look at them. Not all open and oozing, so big you could look through them and see heaven. From covering the hands, it was a short jump to covering the arms, and then the legs, and then everything, don't look at me, everyone look at me, don't look at me, everyone look at me. Either way they stared, but he could tell them lies. I'm a burn victim. I was in a terrible fire and had to get skin grafts all over my body and all they could save was my face. I'm a leper. I'm an albino. I have skin cancer. I have the plague, I'm covered in boils.
The first time he took them off for someone else who didn't ask, it was all knots in the stomach and the tightness around the spine that terror evokes. The second, just fascinated curiosity, like conducting a social experiment, and defiance, a reclaiming of the self from any prying eyes or judgment calls. The third, a growing sense of apathy, because --
"I realized no one noticed."
Why? Why not.