On Beauty & the Wasteland - v.1 / issue 8 - People Like Me

 

On Beauty & the Wasteland
V.1 / issue 8

“The words pierced my heart. 

My soul. 

My very being.

The rose is wilted 

and only the 

sardonic thorn remains.”

- from a poem I write at 15

People Like Me

I am a skinny and bookish 15 years old girl. My elbows brace into my sides and my shoulders elevate as if I am perpetually cold. I am perpetually cold. 

By age 15, how many times have I heard the words “This family would be perfect if it weren’t for you?” How many times have I heard the words, “You don’t like it here? There’s the door. Leave!” 

I have not yet attempted suicide or been sent to the psych ward, but I will accomplish both within 2 months time. 

I have not yet prostituted myself, but I will accomplish this within 6 months. I don’t need the money and will use the proceeds to purchase the double CD of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. 

I have not yet run away from home or had vaginal sex or gotten high, but I will accomplish all three of these on the same day, within 9 months of our visit to Grandmother’s house.

Right now, these things have not happened yet. Right now, I am just 15 last month. My family and I are visiting my maternal grandmother in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Grandmother’s grapefruit tree is heavy with fruit just as her clothes line is weighed down with wet laundry. 

Her book shelf is full of Mother Theresa in Calcutta and the Virgin Mary miracles in Medugorje. She goes to church every Sunday and volunteers weekly at the food bank and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. She faithfully does her crosswords over breakfast and religiously watches Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy after dinner. Grandmother has photographs of the president and the pope side-by-side on her Florida-room wall above her bookshelf next to her recliner in front of the TV.

Grandmother pulls me aside and asks me to read a prayer she has selected for family dinner. She tells me this is an honor. She is choosing me especially.

I consider what she says. I tell her I will think about it. 

Ultimately, I turn her down. I confide in her, “I am not sure I believe god exists. They say god is love, yet I do not feel love.” 

My grandmother turns to me, daggers in her eyes, and spits, 

“It’s people like you who cause all the evil in the world.”

I am confused, spinning. Do I know I am spinning or is this so familiar a state by this time that I do not recognize any other inner state exists? 

Grandmother doesn’t speak to or look at me for the rest of our visit. 

Her words. They echo within me. “People like me.” What does this even mean? 

We cause all the evil in the world? Me and people like me? I cause all the evil in the world? Me and people like me? Who are we? Who am I? 

So many words echo and spin within me. Some of them come to me now, as I write:

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I should be ashamed of myself!”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“My family would be perfect if it weren’t for me.”

“It’s people like me who cause all the evil in the world.”

“Idiot”

“Bastard”

“Difficult Child”

My collapsing knees as my mother stands at the top of the steps, tongue like a whip, looking down at me:

“I wish you’d fallen down the stairs and died.”

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

***

“You wish I’d fallen down the stairs and died.”

“I wish I’d fallen down the stairs and died.”

Do you wish you’d fallen down the stairs and died? 

I wish you’d fallen down the stairs and died.

The beatings are bad. The words are worse. 

***

“If I don’t like it here. 

There’s the door.

Leave.”

I leave. 

“I’ll give you/me/all of us something to cry about.”