Fourteen Years Old

I kissed Jennifer, and she even let me get to second base with her, and it was all I could think about that day.

I’d never kissed a girl before.

I kissed someone, but he didn’t count, because We Don’t Talk About That Day.

Jennifer smelled like cinnamon, and her brown hair reminded me of it. I sat in the bigger living room, feeling guilty about kissing Jennifer.

Not that I didn’t like it, but that if my mother found out I wouldn’t get to do it again. Also that I didn’t do more, and stopped when someone started watching us. Kissing and groping each other in the park was not a good idea.

I wonder if I am her type, but I figure I’m not. Everyone was Jennifer’s type, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be her favorite type.

I lay down on the couch, and fall asleep after a long day at school, and a long time after school doing things that I shouldn’t do.

I awake in my bed. It’s night time, and everything is Full HD, so I don’t know if it's just a dream.

For some odd reason, I know what I must do.

I get out of my bed, in my blue dress nightgown, sheer and to my ankles that I dislike. Mother never lets me choose the clothes I want, because those are boy clothes, and you wear too much black anyway.

I became irritated when I walked down the narrow stairwell, her closet filled with only brown and orange clothes.

I walk through the smaller living room, only illuminated by the blue glow of the computer. The Windows XP logo seems odd to me. I wonder who left it on, and why it didn’t go dim on its own.

The computer was my place to ignore the Horror Of Daylight, but it could never protect me from the Many Horrible Things In The Dark. I stare at wishing it would speak back, and then I continue into the kitchen.

I feel ridiculous for being attached to an inanimate object. It couldn’t do anything but distract me from The Horror of Daylight. I laugh at myself as I search through the drawers, trying to find a knife.

I can never remember where anything is, in the house I have lived in, for several years.

I finally found the knife in the drawer.

The drawer is right next to the closet that holds the washer and dryer. The dryer was my favorite, because sometimes I would put my brother inside, and we would laugh together as he spun inside. Until of course, my Mother found out, and we couldn’t do it again.

I smile, remembering the fun things we could now do that my brother was older. I pick up the large flat cooking knife, with the blue handle, and laugh, thinking about what other things we could do when my Mother left for work, so we couldn’t get in trouble.

I sigh as the cold blade pushes into the top of my arm.

I don’t feel a thing, as I push it down my arm, like butter, the skin falling off, exposing the muscles and veins. I’m so happy when I see the fat fall off my arm, and am overjoyed that it worked.

I could now be Jennifer’s Favorite Type.

The knife gets bigger as I lop off more parts of my body. After finishing my left arm, I make work on my right, and worry how I will get everything off my back without any help.

This time I have cut too deep, and I start to bleed. I wonder why I didn’t bleed before, with my exposed tendons. My dream answers me, and the blood spurts out in long, hot, and fast pulses, splashing on the wall, and onto the hard white tile.

I cut.

Satisfied of the signs that I Am Still Human, I then cut the sides, the love handles. I wonder why they call them love handles, as there was nothing about them to love.

I realize that somehow, I am naked, in my kitchen, but I have never taken my clothes off. I still do not realize that this is a dream, and I am more than happy to finally become Jennifer’s Favorite Type.

I cut.

No parts are good enough to keep. I cut off my ears, because they are too small. I cut off my nose, because it is too wide. I cannot cut my eyes yet, because how else would I cut off all the parts I don’t need?

It takes some time to cut off my lips, which are too big. They were ridiculously big, sticking out and red, looking nothing like my actual lips. I still didn’t think it was a dream, the obvious red flags looking normal in the blood soaked kitchen.

I am irritated that one eye is slightly lower than the other, even though I have been told You Look Perfectly Fine, but I know it isn’t true.

I know it.

I am now a skinless, noseless, earless freak, and now I wonder if I have not done enough. I decided to keep going until nothing was left. Nothing was what I needed.

I was sure that Jennifer liked skinny guys, even though I wasn’t skinny and not a guy. So I wanted to make sure I would never get fat, ever again.

This time it hurts when I cut into my arm. I don’t know why.

It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s supposed to hurt.

I cried quietly and closed my eyes, awkwardly cutting into myself like I was playing the violin. I sob deeply hoping that the pain will end, but it won’t.

My flesh falls to the ground, and I look down, seeing pieces of me all over the tile, which is no longer white. Yet my flesh still persists. I can never cut off enough. No matter how much I cry, or beg, or scream, it refuses to leave.

I cannot handle this. I want to be Her Type.

I drop the knife to the floor, and I decide that I need to make compromises. No one is perfect. This is as close as I will ever get.

But I remember.

My eyes.

“Sacrifices Must Be Made.”

I push my skinless fingers into my right eye socket, the trouble some eye that is slightly lower than the other. I cannot lower my left eye socket, and I cannot bring up my right.

So I only need one eye.

It makes perfect sense.

Wet sounds surround me, and grab onto a corner of the wall jutting out. It stings against my skinless self, the muscles twitching and spasming from the contact of foreign contamination.

I shudder, wanting to rid myself of my foreign contaminations.

This eye is all that is left.

I scream and pull it out, but it will not budge. It is hanging on, out of my right eye socket, swinging like a pendulum, mocking me for trying to become Beautiful.

It won’t happen, not now, not ever, but I will get rid of all foreign contaminants. It’s the only way to get rid of it, it has to all be done at once or else it might grow back.

I pull as hard as I can, and I try not to make a sound, but it doesn’t come out. Like a parasite my eye’s tendon is stuck, and it refuses to leave. I don’t want it. I don’t need it.

I stumble to the ground and pick up my trusty knife.

I cut.

It’s hard to finish, with the blood pouring out of every part of my skinless body. I can’t grip the knife properly, and I definitely can’t aim properly either. Everything is harder to do with one eye, but I tell myself, of course everything is harder after surgery.

I lean onto the white kitchen walls, and try to get a good grip on the eye, but I can’t. My hands are too wet from all the blood. So I lean my head onto the wall, and try not to slide downwards.

It’s hard to stand up now from all the blood loss, but Sacrifices Must Be Made.

I hold the knife up to my face, but the blood makes my head slip downwards anyway.

I die.