Remember Where It Began

She’s not bleeding on the ballroom floor
Just for the attention
‘Cause that’s just ridiculous

She stared at her reflection. Red eye shadow, viva la Gerard Way. Too much eyeliner, oh so pop punk. Dark red lipstick, whatever was lying around. Tie, buttons, miniskirt, fishnets. She was trying so hard to fit the scene, trying so hard to look the part. But, my God, she felt alive for the first time in her life.

Her dad never would have let her dress like this, never would have let her wear red eye shadow. He would have made her wash the anarchy symbol off of her right hand.

It was, of course, the most dramatic her look would be as she discovered herself. When one realizes what they are and what those like them do, they emulate to the point of costume. You certainly didn’t need to dress the way she did to be considered “punk”, but being alive made her want to be consumed by the scene, the fabric, the music.

It made her sit down at her computer and begin to write. She painted stories of boys in love, of men denying themselves, of a love story doomed, of porn and romance. She wrote until her fingers bled, wrote until the words weren’t even coming from her fingers coming straight from mind to screen. People responded, fucking responded. A girl stopped cutting, a girl begged to have her children, people knew her by name.

She wasn’t conceited, not yet. She was so happy, so alive. She was born again.

Oh, and then the words froze up in her throat. God, she was writing so much. So many things, but the romances turned into rape and knives and blood and oh fuck did he kill himself.

The pills she was popping, the drugs from her mother’s prescription bottles, the pretty orange cylinders on the bathroom shelf. They were becoming oh-so-apparent in her writing, oh-so-apparent in the way that her two created lovers were interacting, oh-so-apparent in the way that her tragic Greek god hero was constantly falling apart.

Then there was the blood. Stealing the steak knife from the kitchen, surely no one would miss it. Standing in the shower, letting the water fall down on her skin. She pressed hard, desperate for blood. Oh how much that terrified her, the need for blood. There would be no release until she saw red run down her arm. And, oh, she’d hurt herself before, but never this need to rip herself open, to watch her blood swirl down the drain.

But it was oh-so-apparent in her writing, oh-so-apparent in the long sleeve shirts she wore, oh-so-apparent in her online journal entries, oh-so-apparent in the note she wrote to herself with large letters and red magic marker

It was oh-so-apparent in the way she hid in the library, writing instead of going to class. The way she would casually get up and walk to the bathroom, opening her purse and pulling out the knife. She pressed hard, watched the blood rise, pressed toilet paper to her arm, walked back to the table to write. How could her characters be so happy in this story? How could she write humor? When every other story was about suicide how could all the others be about joy and life?

She was alive for the first time in her life, but the blood wasn’t how she wanted to remember her rebirth.

So she took the pills. She couldn’t walk straight and her head was light, but oh how the words flowed from her fingertips tapping away at the keys. The letters formed words and the words formed sentences and, oh, how the people she wrote for talked to her.

Then the hospital.

It’s sterile and the walls are white. She was there two years before, in the adolescent ward. It had been Thanksgiving and she had run away from home. She had cut words into her arms—bitch, fat, whore, I hate you—but no blood. She didn’t need it then.

Now it was five days to Halloween. Halloween, a game of costumes and dress up. But hadn’t she been doing so well with that already? This time there was blood and a black notebook with a strap to keep it closed. She read her poetry out loud to the other patients and they told her it was beautiful. She felt so beautiful, so safe in the locked hospital walls. She kissed a girl in the smoking room, felt her tongue ring in her mouth. She flirted shamelessly, she smoked more than she had been. She was safe in the walls, nothing could harm her.

She didn’t realize it at the time. Oh God, how she wanted out. Cried and cried when they wouldn’t let her go. Called her mom everyday. Called her dad once. He didn’t have much to say, never did. She wrote in her room, wrote about her two Greek tragedy heroes and poetry about herself dancing in metaphors. She had pictures of her two tragedy heroes on the shelf, pictures of her family.

She left the hospital, left with pills and prescriptions and felt like she would be better. It was Halloween. She wore a black dress and fishnets and handed out candy to the few trick or treaters that made it to her door.

She posted in her blog. She felt better. She wrote and the words flew from her fingers and, oh, she was happy. For a moment. For a moment she was happy. She was lying to people online, lying about herself, and then two of her online sanctuaries fell apart. Oh, how she cried. Cried and sobbed. They were eating steak that night and hers was cold as she stared at a computer screen crying. How could they?

Oh, December. Christmas and snow and candy canes. Oh, how she fell apart in December. She must have fallen hard because when they mentioned it in April she couldn’t recall it. She didn’t remember being depressed, didn’t remember her heart falling apart.

Her heroes had changed then. Now they were boys who dressed in black and had pale skin and sang songs with metaphors instead of straight-forward meanings. The words flew from her fingers and she found her sanctuary again, typing the words and reading the praise. She started a war, started a revolutions, stood up for what she believed. For the first time in her life it actually meant something.

She was alive again.

Then her poet god heroes changed once again. Oh, like always there was no warning and no help. It was the late night television shows and a song drifting through her radio. She had no control, had no will power. Where her mind took her she must follow, lest her fingers stop tapping on the keyboard, lest the words stop flowing, lest the stories die out.

Oh, she typed hard. One . . . two . . . three . . . sixteen chapters. Oh, but that was over a year ago. That was a lifetime ago. That was when she was still alive, still scared, still alive, taking the wrong pills again. That was trying too hard, trying not to scream. So hard she fell, so depressed, alive.

And then her characters regressed and she was writing about the original Greek tragedy heroes, she was writing again about what had made her born again in the first place. She was typing and typing and her words were pulling her down in a whirlwind, spinning her around. Like in September when her blood had run down the drain, spinning and twisting within the water before disappearing. She was disappearing. Where was she going?

She met him, she met him and oh God that night . . . how could she give in so easily? How could she fall apart inside so desperately, craving so badly for contact and you’re so pretty and oh God he called her by name. She poured herself open on that page and then he took it and twisted it and she was on her back and he was over her and she was pulling him down, begging for more but unwilling to give him all that he wanted. And it was her idea, her stupid fucking idea. And she told him, not asked, but told and he did what she wanted and oh God she gave in so easily. She choked, she coughed, she drove home.

She cried.

She cried so hard and messaged the girl that was her best friend and cried and her throat hurt so bad and oh God what if? The forced her fingers down her throat, felt it spill from between her lips. Her fingers flew and if it were a piece of poetic bullshit then her tears would have hit the keyboard. She typed so hard and so fast, told the girl how stupid she was and oh how she cried. And oh how stupid, she had left her cell phone with him. She had to see him one last time, take her cell phone back, run to the store and get something to keep in her mouth.

She felt so dirty.

But alive.

Broken and abused, sobbing and pouring her heart out on the computer screen. But alive. More pills, more tears, more pills, not quite dead yet.

The girl, the beautiful girl, the one who had listened to the tears and the sobs, the one who had known her from the beginning, the angel that had saved her from herself. That girl became hers, became the love of her life, became her angel, became her everything. And that angel-girl, the beautiful one with the dark brown hair who tapped at her own keyboard, that angel-girl made her promise no more pills. And, oh, what a scary thought. But she made the promise, so scared. But she made it.

And then the words got stuck. A month, maybe more, but oh the words got stuck. Her fingers couldn’t tap the keyboard in the same rhythm. It was so slow and she stared at the screen hard. And she tried, fuck she tried. She slammed her fingers down, begged them to make a pattern. Begged herself, sobbed. Oh God and what if.

There were stories and there were chapters, but it never flowed right. Her fingertips didn’t create a river that could barely be contained, her computer screen didn’t fill as quickly. She was scared and she was starting to wilt, could feel the life leaving her. Her face didn’t glow like it used to.

Her fingers bled at the keyboard, her eyes stung with salty tears, she bit her lip. She couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t get her fingers to cooperate, couldn’t get the words from her mind to the keyboard. She tried so hard. Then her mind changed again, took her somewhere. Where was she? Oh, she was writing everything and there were no boundaries to plotline, only boundaries to how much and how fast and that hadn’t changed.

The words were slow, the tears were fast, she sobbed out loud. The muse inside of her was dead, her heart was breaking. If she wasn’t a writer then what was she? Was there anything beyond the words and the notebook pages and the chapters containing the tales of her Greek tragedy heroes? And they asked for more, always for more, and oh God she didn’t have it. She wanted it, oh God, how she wanted it and they kept asking and there was nothing she could do.

She fell again. She was dying, her heart rate was slowing. She was listening to her Greek tragedy heroes sing, listening to their voices dripping like a drug into her ears, listening to them say words that she felt were for her and only for her and maybe . . . oh, just maybe they could give her back some life, give her back some sparkle.

Her fingers shook now, terrified of the keyboard. She was broken, sputtering, drown in blank pieces of notebook paper.

And then her mind moved again. Oh, how short lived it was but oh so important. Two weeks, maybe three. DVD and a computer program. A video, a story, another story. Trying so hard, managing it. And then . . . over. As if it had never happened.

Then that girl . . . that girl and her damned story . . . that girl and the story that captured her and pulled her in. And oh what if. What if maybe her fingers could tap the keyboard again? Maybe they could move quickly, like they used to. Maybe . . . maybe when they said more she would have it. Maybe she could kill in the name of her art, kill what had killed her, kill the thing inside of her.

Maybe she could have a muse again.

Maybe she could live.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, her tears disappeared, her mind reeled with infinite plotlines, her computer screen filled with words . . .

Life is beautiful.