thoughts at 8teen? by Rose Vint

Every time you call me beautiful, I want to eat grease until I’m fat. I grow hair on my body then tear it off in strips, crawl about like a flayed man in agony. I peel my eyelids apart and clamp down on the hair. Remember last summer? My eyes melted seamlessly into my face; I’d clenched too hard, and the stubble around my lash line had ripped clean off. What do I do? How do I hold on to the soft, cream skin, the ridges, the bumps?

How can I lose myself and make mistakes, act like I don’t know what I’m doing, and act like I do? How can my voice stay soft and low as you like? In my ears I’m louder, though you tell me I never say a word above a whisper.

I still look like a child and never argue when people decline me things for it. To look like a child is so comforting, to be told no, to have someone hold the packet out of reach so I can’t eat what’s inside.

I lick my fingers when they’re sticky from food just as I did at age twelve, except now it makes me feel a little sick, a little dirty.

Every time you call me beautiful, I’m filled with doubt and envy. And a grief for my beautiful godmother, for my beautiful grandfather and his dark hair that never faded grey. I’m reminded of nights at age sixteen when I opened up my insides and let the organs spill out. Begged the dirt and the trees to be beautiful, then begged the chemical gods when that didn’t work, bribing them with money.

When you call me beautiful, I want to say something to you, and I want you to not turn away. I want my voice to carry.

Now I’m eighteen; I want you to look me in the eyes and call me something else.

Rose Vint is an 18-year-old A-level English Literature student from Buckinghamshire

@_rosevint

Photo by Min An at Pexels