Full Tilt

I'm Kind of a Shower Door, Baby

"I do not know why I would go in front of you and hide my soul ,'cause you're the only one who knows it."

I was never perfect.  Never had the greatest smile, the perfect curves, that poised demeanor that only ladies held.  I'm brash and damaged.  Big-boned with a bottom lip where one side dips lower than the other... that's me.  Honey blonde with blue eyes that pretend to be silver when I'm sad; a vertical nostril and a horizontal nostril.  The day I pointed it out you laughed and said, "Oh man, I don't know about this now, that nostril might just fuck it up."  Of course you were being sarcastic, and I think a lot about how the corner of your mouth lifted while you spoke.  

There are things about me I haven't told you.  Things that should remain unsaid, but I know can never be.  You've been so honest with me thus far about who you are and what you've been through, and I've just been this frosted glass shower door.  I stick a little when you try to open me up and you can only see the hazy outline of what's inside.. nothing's actually crystal.  I can't help it though; I grew up with a shut-in attitude and that's how I'll always be.  I want to be open with you though, I want you to see me.  I'm just scared of what might happen when I show you everything.  You know I'm damaged, we put that on the table from day one... but you don't know just how much.

I should just say it all.

I'm textbook.  You know... you look at me and you see this shy girl with hand drawn fake henna patterns up her arms.  A pixie cut and a foul mouth to match.  You call me a hipster chick.  I'll admit when you dubbed me this I was a little pissy about it, but I suppose I've come to realize you're right about it.  I'm a textbook hipster.  

I live by song quotes and a sketchpad filled with half-assed pieces and a couple Picasso's in the mix.  I have a few too many stories that serve as examples for when people need help understanding, and I probably smell like Degree for Men and Tommy.  

And now I'm stalling.

I was born a bastard and I'm pretty sure I have four "possible" fathers.  Somehow my mom happened to wind up with a Taurean bitch as a daughter, which likely comes from the damned Aries moon of mine.  I've always been a bit more curious about things than I should have been.  As a kid I'd marvel at history documentaries and my favorite thing to do was read mythologies.  To be frank I was a handful when it came to trying to love me.  I was more interested in my books than talking, and I'd often go hours at a time sitting in the corner of my bedroom reading rather than say hello to my mom.

Raising me was hard on her.  She worked two jobs on top of the Air Force and I really didn't know her all that well for much of my early years.  There was actually a time there where I didn't know her.  She was a stranger to me, and she was my mother.  I still can see the expression on her face when I asked her, "I'm sorry but who are you?"  She went in and out of boyfriends... so many that I can't even count them on two hands anymore.  A lot of that was my fault.  As soon as they learned there was a little one involved they were in one door and out the other.  I guess the immediate responsibility of a kid was too much of a "committment" to even consider her.  Or they thought she was a whore... god knows.  All I knew was that whatever was going on, it wore on her.  For several years she had retreated into herself.  The time on the weekends that I had her to myself was spent watching her sleep in the bedroom.  She never ate, she was barely ever awake.  Even after she became sober, it just got worse.  For years I had blamed this upon myself.  I mean, if I didn't exist she wouldn't have lost out on so much, right?  She wouldn't have been written off by her own family as a worthless slut, right?

This had become my life...

Then my mom met my stepdad.

She had gone to school with him when they were kids.  They were in love with each other for years, and neither of them told each other.  She used to write "Jamie Marie Fletcher" in her notebooks and would think up names for their kids.  You know, cutesie little girl things... all of us are guilty of doing it at least once in our lives.  Fuck even me!