Parturition

The first time I did it I was 12. Prep 2, Home Economics. I don’t know what did it. Maybe it was being forced to be in the kitchen, cooking, more like over-cooking a pasty pasta. Maybe it was the smell of oil. My incompetence as a female to enjoy, the sounds of a scraping knife against a cutting board, or the sizzling of the oil, or the fact that I always felt I carried a deep dark secret that weighed on me through every moment of my day. They can see it in my eyes, everyone knows. I avoided him at school, wondered if his fingerprints would always be imprinted on my body. If I died, in the autopsy would they be able to tell where his hands went from lifting up the fingerprints. Home Economics, I had to be something I didn’t want to be. Don’t know what it is, but it was stifling. Just as stifling as wearing a skirt was. Every skirt was an invasion that cut straight to my center. Shook me and left me humiliated. I might as well be naked and for everyone to touch me. My hairless peepee, my completely undeveloped boobees. The skirt exposed them, the kitchen exposed them. The emptiness sliced through my gut. My head felt light and I felt I was passing out. I was passing the kitchen knife to one of the students. I wanted to help, but every time I tried, waves of shame would just take me under. I snuck the knife, outside the kitchen in my pocket. I took it to the bathroom. Locked the door. I sat on the toilet seat and stared at my feet. I was wearing different a shoe on each foot, a green shoe and a red shoe. I stared at my wrists, the knife, my feet. I pressed the knife to my wrist gently; as I pressed harder some invisible hand guided my hand to my palm. I cut deeply across my lifeline. It took a few seconds before the blood appeared. Shyly through the opening. Peeping, then a torrent. I breathed. I have connected with myself. I wiped the blood off my hand, wrapped my hand with toilet paper, and stuck it deep into my pocket. I returned the knife with out cleaning it. I watched with satisfaction, almost a euphoria as they struggled through their tears and runny noses to cut the onions with the knife that had cleansed me.

I had a new secret now, one that set me apart from everyone else. One that no one could know about. One that made headaches go away, loneliness go away, that crazy feeling that my chest was going to explode and splatter all over the walls, go away. One that no one must know about ever. I either hid it well, or no one cared, but no one knew. After knives, came sharp pointed object, from cutting to scraping away, repeatedly. From dead skin flaking off in a powder, to epidermis that would gather at the sides of the cut, to dermis searing hot collected around the tip of metal. To blood, to breathing, to pride, pride that this was mine, pride that I didn’t need anyone, pride that my secret was mine, it wasn’t a secret shared by two people. It was just for me. To burning, to blisters, to punching, to whipping, to biting.

When I look at my hands now, 13 years later, I feel proud of the scars, when I get close to someone I share the story behind each scar with them. It brings me closer to people, to share something that was so painful. I don’t share new wounds, I hide them. I will not be reprimanded. I will not give explanations. I will not be labeled. I can see you look at my hands, I can see you acknowledge them. Acknowledging my desperation, not judging me, Thank you for not judging, fuck you if you are. It has to be my hands, I have to feel it with every action, I have to conceal them. It sets me apart now from people, with shame that 13 years later I’m still 12 years old, that probably in another 13 years I’ll still be 12. It has to be my hands, because it’s the only part in my body that I can comfortably put into my mouth. Bite through, continuously, taste the skin and blood, gnaw and tear with my teeth. I feel better, but I probably will not share this with you, because I don’t want to see you look at me in disgust, to think I’m a freak, to look at me with pity, try to help me, I feel the rift between us because I will not share. I will hide it, make up stories about it, state it matter of factly devoid of emotion, allude to it, but this is mine and only mine and no matter how much you think that I'm sharing. I will not share it.