From the pointing pen
I was looking at the design of this page and at the top right corner is a fountain pen. Remember those? I never learned how to use them correctly, and I ended up with ink-stained fingers and knuckles, with ink everywhere but on the paper.
I noticed the hand wrapped around the pen, and the nail on the hand on the pen. Who has such perfect hands? My hands have never been beautiful. I attack them daily; biting, ripping off skin, pulling a tears or cuts, making them bleed. I eat my fingernails not for nourishment but for the pain that resides when they are gone. I never notice it while I'm doing it, only after when the exposed skin starts to breathe and the pain radiates through the fingertip.
Why all of the nervous energy? Where does it come from? Why can't I control it, or more important, why does it control me? I have tried solution upon solution. Nasty-tasting nailspread, bitter to the tongue, is only a temporary deterrent. Sleeping with gloves at night. Keeping my hands moisturized during the day (almost impossible if you want to type on a keyboard; your fingers keep slipping off the keys and creating non-words with every keystroke). It's as if I want my hands to be ugly, to be the voice of the ugly inside.
I have never been a pretty girl. I have accepted the fact that I will never be tall and thin, never have flawless skin, never be the girl that stops people in their tracks or draws eyes from across a room. Instead, I will blind you with my self-deprivation and my goal to make fun of myself before you make fun of me. Before you say something that will be so devastating to my self-esteem that I will smile while dying slowly before you. I joke about being at my fighting weight, or being so short you could step on me, or having hair that grays as you speak. I say all of these things with an edge, so you can't see what's behind them, or what's behind me. So you cannot feel the insecurity that I am a total failure. I can never be pretty. I don't know how to use makeup to make me pretty as the other girls do. I don't know what to do with my hair, which never seems to fall softly, framing my face like it does for other girls. My body is misshapen and I have no desire to fix it, although I talk about wanting to be thin, I am taking no steps to get there, which means I don't really want it badly enough.
All this and I haven't even looked in the mirror yet today. Me, hair held back by a bandanna, in a colorless gray sweatshirt and pillow-tangled hair. Take a deep breath and imagine yourself beautiful. Imagine yourself content, thin, being mindful about you, your body, your life, your self. Or me, just dreaming of pulling the covers back over my head and reveling in the warmth of anonymity and a down comforter.
I noticed the hand wrapped around the pen, and the nail on the hand on the pen. Who has such perfect hands? My hands have never been beautiful. I attack them daily; biting, ripping off skin, pulling a tears or cuts, making them bleed. I eat my fingernails not for nourishment but for the pain that resides when they are gone. I never notice it while I'm doing it, only after when the exposed skin starts to breathe and the pain radiates through the fingertip.
Why all of the nervous energy? Where does it come from? Why can't I control it, or more important, why does it control me? I have tried solution upon solution. Nasty-tasting nailspread, bitter to the tongue, is only a temporary deterrent. Sleeping with gloves at night. Keeping my hands moisturized during the day (almost impossible if you want to type on a keyboard; your fingers keep slipping off the keys and creating non-words with every keystroke). It's as if I want my hands to be ugly, to be the voice of the ugly inside.
I have never been a pretty girl. I have accepted the fact that I will never be tall and thin, never have flawless skin, never be the girl that stops people in their tracks or draws eyes from across a room. Instead, I will blind you with my self-deprivation and my goal to make fun of myself before you make fun of me. Before you say something that will be so devastating to my self-esteem that I will smile while dying slowly before you. I joke about being at my fighting weight, or being so short you could step on me, or having hair that grays as you speak. I say all of these things with an edge, so you can't see what's behind them, or what's behind me. So you cannot feel the insecurity that I am a total failure. I can never be pretty. I don't know how to use makeup to make me pretty as the other girls do. I don't know what to do with my hair, which never seems to fall softly, framing my face like it does for other girls. My body is misshapen and I have no desire to fix it, although I talk about wanting to be thin, I am taking no steps to get there, which means I don't really want it badly enough.
All this and I haven't even looked in the mirror yet today. Me, hair held back by a bandanna, in a colorless gray sweatshirt and pillow-tangled hair. Take a deep breath and imagine yourself beautiful. Imagine yourself content, thin, being mindful about you, your body, your life, your self. Or me, just dreaming of pulling the covers back over my head and reveling in the warmth of anonymity and a down comforter.