What's Wrong With Me
Saturday, November 14, 2009 I accidentally poured drain cleaner all over my face and permanently scarred myself. At two years old, I saved my toast for later, but when I touched it, it was hard and rough and cold, and it horrified me to know that things changed when I was not there. I owned a brown, cardboard suitcase. My friend cried while he watched his helium balloon drift into the sky, and his father just laughed and pretended to shoot at it. The caterpillar I housed in a peanut butter jar with holes nailed through the lid spun itself a cocoon, and I hurled it down the stairs in fear and disgust. I caught my big toe in the pedal of my bicycle and crashed, scraping most of the skin off my six-year-old nipples. My brother was locked away from me by his disabilities. I stole from my teachers in grade two without guilt. The first opportunity I had to fit in with kids more popular than I meant being mean. I died and came back and lost my religion. I convinced my cousin that I was the devil and threatened his soul. Bullying meant that no one spoke to or even acknowledged me for most grade five. I saw a terrifying angel that told me he would always be with me. I was drowning, and my aunt saved my life. I hated organ lessons. I found a nest dropped to the ground with baby birds prematurely broken out of their shells, their soft fetal beaks gawping open and closed, so I mercy-killed them with my boot heel. I pet a wild red fox in a forest. A girl from my class befriended me over the summer and then told all her friends that I was a loser when school started again in the fall. I came across two books of excessively offensive porn and read them religiously cover to cover. The bear I ran into did not even growl at me. I sewed two stitches through my finger with a sewing machine. I got my period when I was thirteen. The one and only time I found my disabled brother truly sobbing, I held him and we rocked together on the floor for over an hour. The girl I slept with pretended not to remember that it had happened and broke my heart. A friend hanged himself when neither the army nor his father would accept him. I had a boy in my head that told me what to do. I was hit by a car while riding my bike. My cat Pepper died just after my fifteenth birthday. A mule deer licked the palm of my hand. I started smoking. A small monkey grabbed my face and stared intently into my eyes on the streets of San Francisco. I was trapped in a casino while police disarmed a gunman in the parking lot. I beat an injured pigeon to death with a shovel. I lost faith in a friend. A car I was in rolled over, and I walked out without so much as a bruise. At twenty, I became engaged to a man I could not marry. I unwittingly had a religious symbol tattooed onto my ass. I behaved cruelly to someone who did nothing to deserve it. I smoked crystal meth. I lost a friend to a drunk driver. I failed Art History. I googled an old friend that I had not seen in years and found out that he was dead. Two of my therapists abandoned me when they moved their practices. I quit smoking after twenty-one years and worry over its contribution to my death like a body that needs burying.
The above was inspired by BHJ's "Loose Ends By the Score".
Reader Comments (41)
Wow, that was intense-- in a good way. It almost reads like poetry
I'm not sure what to say.
I loved this.
You paint a very vivid scene. Parts of this will resonate with me for awhile, I think.
Loved.
Your life has been such a wild ride, my friend. You're an incredible person to have gone through all of that and become the person you are today. You rock.
You are so powerful.
I wonder if you felt better or worse having written this list. I have a huge urge to make one for myself. I'll go ahead and be captian obvious and say that these are not at all things that are wrong with you but rather the things you have endured to become the person you are today.
this was fascinating to read. although I don't know what to say beyond that.
To me they seem like the first sentences of books or stories I want to read. Especially the one about the mule deer.
It reads like a book - but I can't think of which one. It reminds me of something though. The images your words create are really intense - to the point that I feel sad and bad and hurt after reading it. As though I lived it. But you really did. There was a definite beauty in those words. I think this post is one of your best.
Ouch, I think I mean OUCH. But hooray for you for having so much more than these loose ends. The knitted fabric of you is much more lovely than the loose ends seen by themselves would suggest.
Nothing. Shit happens. A lot of shit. I'm amazed you remember, a lot of things I tend to forget.
courage, you has it.
wow.
wow. I may have to do this. the purging of thoughts.
xoxo
I love you, which I know sounds weird since we've never met. But I know I do.
That's a heck of a list.
This is beautiful and bright. Thank you for sharing it.
I cried when I read this. Partly because I felt for poor Little Schmutzie, partly because the piece was just so good.
(and for what it's worth, it made me want to find that girl with the "bad memory" and call her on it.)
Wow...this post was amazing and so powerful.
Gorgeous, vivid pictures. Like looking through a window into your soul.
Love your blog!
Absolutely nothing. <3
There are 100 different blog posts in this one powerful post.
I usually only lurk, but for this one I had to come out.
I think that what so affects me about this post is that I have these things too (probably everyone does) that always exist just beneath the surface of who I am. I don't talk about them because somewhere inside I am still five or nine or twelve, and I still feel like the rotten, evil child. If people knew this stuff, they wouldn't like (love) me anymore. This entry really gets at that feeling, and so I feel the need to say that I still like you as much as I did a year ago when I started reading. Actually, that's not true. I like you more.
Damn.
Wow.
Powerful, Schmutzie.
And to think ... all that went into the making of you.
Wow, kind of Grace in Small Things in Reverse. Maybe the next one could be "What's Right With Me." It would be very long and colorful!
Holy crap. In tents.
Perfect.
And still, nothing is wrong with you.
How does one unwittingly have a religious symbol tattooed onto her ass? This one definitely needs further explanation. :-)
Debbie Rodgers, here is how I happened into a religious tattoo: http://www.mamapop.com/mamapop/2009/10/10-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-tattoos-plus-the-one-on-this-shameless-authors-butt.html
There's nothing wrong with you, not at all.
That was amazing. Thank you.
I loved this.
When I was 20, I was driving home from college on a dark road at night and saw a raccon in the road whose back half had been run over by a car. It was still alive. I knew I should run over it to put it out of its misery, but I just pulled over and cried. I couldn't do it. I still think about it now, 23 years later.
beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking.
you, schmutzie, are an amazing force of nature.
simply amazing.
holy shit, dude.
This made my heart beat a little faster.
I was so fascinated by the order. of each thing. Right from the start.
First the face scar with acid....did that come before or after you were two?
Everyone has such insightful awesome comments. I read each one and said, "I know!" "Yes!" "Exactly" "I was wondering that, too? How does one unwittingly get a tattoo on one's butt?
Look what you've done to me!
My heart beat faster, too. I blinked. I shuddered. I rocked right along with you and your brother. What kid of disability, and why were you kept from him?
I was on a car accident spree, myself. No more hey, world, beat me up!
How many days has it been without cigs?? *fist bump*
It has been three days and I'm still thinking of the images in this post. Great artwork, m'dear.
AmyMusings, that is high praise. Thank you.
What's wrong with you is you are unable to see beyond the immediate and have no concept of the consequences of your actions.
It isn't poetry, it's a confession of wilful stupidity.
I fucking love you.