Too Hard to Know

When I was 18, I was an open book.

Literally anything you could think to ask me I would answer truthfully.  I was flattered that anyone might take an interest in little ol' me.  I was naïve, careless to a fault, physical, and flirtatious.  I was...well I was happy.  Completely fucked in the head, but I spent my days and my interactions with a grin on my face.

Then a number of people told me they couldn't care less what I had to say.  I had too many problems, or too much to say, or maybe the subject matter was just unimportant.  I was given a piece of their minds.  I was told to give it a rest, to stop being an idiot, to let the big kids talk.  I was told, "What now?" whenever I said hello.  I was given, over and over, the intentional impression that it was time to shut up and let someone else speak.

So, because my attention to what the people around me want is obsessive, I stopped talking about me.  Not all at once.  Not overnight.  Not just from a couple of regrettable interactions.  But eventually I got the picture.

Words still come out of my mouth, but I am most comfortable when I am getting you to talk about YOU.  There's no way I can mess that up, come off as offensive, say too much, or regret anything.  Plus, it helps people - everyone loves to talk about themselves.  I do best when I am listening.  I hope I make people feel comfortable in sharing.

For that, I've been called manipulative, closed off, mistrusting.  I've been called a bad friend because I don't share enough.

I can't win for losing.

I don't know where the line is.  I have never seen this line.  I just know that I am so focused on making other people feel comfortable that I will spend an entire conversation fretting over when I should throw in a relatable anecdote, if I should let it continue to be just about them, if I am nodding my head too much, and fearing, with an overwhelming, all-consuming terror, that they will ask about me.  I will spend a whole discussion steering away from me.  I will spend EVERY discussion steering away from me.

It's a skill, I'm telling you.  I have had four hour long conversations in which I did not say a damn thing that was on my mind.

Because this is the double standard I live by:

Anything you want to share with me, you can.  Nothing is too weird.  If you want to talk, I'm here.

My business is my business and no one else's - nobody needs to know it.

Maybe it's the people I have selected to confide in over the years.  The people who wanted to use me to get off and would hear anything I had to say as a prerequisite.  I don't do that to people.  I don't listen with the end goal being to use and leave them.  I couldn't.  But the people I've told everything to took those secrets and ran, just as soon as they had what they came for.

Maybe it's just the way I operate.  Maybe after so many years of hurt and struggle to get where I am now, I grew too thick a shell, I overcompensated.

I'm not sure what it is.



The only person I do tell everything to, the only one I am comfortable with telling the ins and outs of my skull, is my husband.  Imagine my heartbreak when he doesn't want to hear it.  When he calls me crazy, stupid, or a cunt.  Can you feel it?



This is the lesson to be learned.

I cannot have friends.  Nobody wants me.  I am broken in a big way, and it is too much for anyone to handle, whether I keep it to myself or share.

In the words of my husband - it's me.  Eventually, I piss everyone off.



I would give anything for a normal, boring life with normal, boring friends and normal, boring conversations.  I would move planets to get that.  I want it with my entire heart.

For now, I'll just be quiet, in this quiet room, with no one but me in it.  For one more night.

Things in My Life a Breast Reduction Would Change/Improve

• Bra shopping/wearing
• Back pain
• Heat rash underneath them
• Appearance - no more boob-sized nipples, no more head-sized boobs
• The ability to find/wear a swimsuit again
• Running without holding my chest
• Wearing appropriately-sized shirts instead of oversized ones
• Wearing low-cut tops without looking easy
• No more deep-cutting lines on my shoulders and rib cage
• Posture
• The ability to wear corsets again, pretty much at all, but especially without looking obscene
• No more fucking anime or Dairy Queen jokes
• No more pain while driving
• No giant uniboob from limited bra options
• Proportion - turns out, huge boobs make you look fat, thanks to pulling clothing out around your middle
• Stretch marks, more and more stretch marks
• The pain of accidentally and suddenly dropping a boob (in shower, putting on bra, etc.)
• The look of horror on a person's face when they see my boobs sans-shirt

I wish I was exaggerating the last one.

My mom.  The doctor.  The chick at the fitting rooms.  The woman who helped size me.  The other woman who couldn't size me.

I'm a freak show.

I want it to stop.

Too Often.

He asks me if I want sex like he asks me if I want a pizza. If I say yes, I will have to immediately spread my legs and be hurt again. Maybe I would get myself off in the end, maybe I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t matter.

I am not ready. So I don’t say anything. I change the subject. Truth is, I feel flabby, melted, rotted.  I don’t feel ready to be exposed and used.

He gives me a halfhearted massage full of gropes and uncomfortable pinches and grabs.  My back aches.  I feel more tired than I began.  He asks again, “sex?”  I wonder if we should sync our schedules.

I change the subject again.

He asks me to move over so he can masturbate.  I ask, “really?”  He inquires if I am upset about moving over or that as a human being he needs to jerk off now and then.

I am hurt.  The timer ran out.  I burned my own chances for intimacy, if that was what it was.  It won’t be happening today.  Was that what I wanted?

I slide over, silent, while the bed trembles.  I am staring at the blanket.

I am a useless cunt.

A broken lay.

A waste of energy.

Bad Wife

It's no secret that I'm bad at sex.  Anyone who has screwed me can tell you that.  My head isn't in the game.

I'm great at giving it, usually, but don't ask me to get off.  Don't ask me to take it.

And never, ever, ever think that I owe it to you.

Even if you're married to me.

But I guess that's a fair expectation.

The baby's out, I've lost a little of the weight, the doc cleared me as healthy enough for sexual activity, and I'm on birth control pills again.  So what's the problem, right?

Everything works down there, so I must just be waiting for you to say go?

I'm not.

I don't want to have sex.

I am not chomping at the bit.

I don't want to do it.

This is how I see myself right now:

• Chunky.  I can't even fit into size 10s.  I can't even squeeze comfortably into my MATERNITY pants.  My tits don't fit in any damn bra, the band doesn't reach around my fatass rib cage, my shirts all look absolutely obscene, and my feet constantly hurt from the weight they carry around.
• Smelly.  You try finding time to shower.  Oh wait, you shower regularly.  Because I'm taking care of the baby.
• Hairy.  I may not be the biggest fan of shaving my legs but I do try to shave my girlbits regularly.  Except that's tough to do when you can't find the time for a shower.
• Torn up.  Except for a cell phone photo, I haven't seen my down theres since a few months into the pregnancy.  I don't remember what it looks like.  I don't know what it looks like now.  I don't know where the stitches were or how badly I tore or how damaged the tissue is or even where.  I'm terrified of it.  I am legitimately scared of my vagina.  BUT YOU WANT ME TO BE UP FOR SEX.

The more anxious you get to screw me, the more aggressive you become about it.  The faster you go.  The less you care about how I feel.  I already hate foreplay, I already hate the idea that I should be expected to enjoy it, to be present, to experience it.  I already feel so very strongly that sex with you should only EVER be for YOU.  But you want to shove fingers in there.  You want to go fast.  You want to stick your head up in my smelly, hairy, unshowered snatch and you don't want me to be self conscious at all.  You want me to pretend it's for me, and not for you.

And then you want to take off your pants, roll me over, and stick it in me.

You expect that.

That is my job, after all.

You simultaneously want me to enjoy it all while reminding me that this is all about you, me pleasing you, me behaving like a normal wife would.

Well I'm not normal.

So get bent.

Cockroaches.

I am a collection of tendencies, wants, obsessions, compulsions, and needs.

I am a never-ending bundle of threads going all different directions.  I am tangled.  I am inefficient.

I get stuck.

I get so overwhelmed in my thoughts, my tasks, my lists, my compulsions, my wants, my whims, that I just...stop.  I can't remember any of them, so I scribble them across my hand, the envelope, a piece of cardboard trash, I write them all out in a big, repeating list of "to-do" and "reminders" just to empty them out of my brain.  Then I look at my mile-long list and I...I just get stuck, and I stop.

I don't know what to do first.

I don't want to do anything.

I NEED to pick at my nails, chew them, file them down all the way, and pull at the cuticles until I am bleeding down to my fingertips.

I NEED to chew on my lip, check that the balls on my piercing are tight, feel for any raised pieces of skin, and pick them away until I am bleeding there, too.

I NEED to click my teeth together an even number of times, tapping each side together in such a way as to evenly account for the mismatched bite.  Then I need to fill in the space between my top and bottom jaw with my tongue and clamp down so that the gaps fill in and every tooth gets the same amount of pressure.

I NEED to find every rough part of my foot and sand it down...I want to walk on sand paper...I want these to be nothing but bone.

I want to be nothing but bone.

I am a product of my compulsions.

I am bleeding and the worst part is, I am only upset because I have run out of parts of me to pick at.  I keep running my hands over my face to look for pimples I might scratch away, or dry skin I can abrade.

I am confined by this.

I am stuck in this brain and it wants to tear me apart and it will not let me think about anything else.



It's sitting in its swing.

It finally shut up.

The things I want to do to just be able to finish a thought...and I know it's my brain, I know.  I just wish I could go outside and get drunk enough to finally sleep and take a long, long drag on a smoke so that my head clouds up and...let's...let's try this.



I open the bottle, and spill out a beautiful, dusty, bitter pill.  I pop it into my mouth and chase it with a bit of water.  The flavor lingers, and I smack my tongue with distaste.  I wait, and a little while later, the dreamy calm hits.  My mind clouds up and I relax, physically and mentally.  It's okay, and I can see exactly what I need to do.

I walk into the kitchen and I grab my smokes, my lighter, a glass, and the bottle of Jameson.  I go outside, dust off the folding chair, and sit beneath the pecan.  It's pitch black out here, and I can hear the crickets around me like predatory little hyenas, laughing at me and waiting to swarm.

I hold onto my glass from the top, shielding it from debris, and open up the whiskey with my other hand.  I pour out what I assume is a couple of shots and close her up.  I light a clove.  I lean back.

My eyelids thud shut while the smoke swirls into my world.  The whiskey is smooth and perfect and easy, like life should be.  I relax as the cockroaches plop onto my head, shoulders, thighs.  As the crickets wander up my ankles and underneath the fraying hem of my jeans.  I drift away as they carry me off.

I never, ever come back again.

Never.