The Penitent

They always try to prepare you for growing but, but the sad fact of the matter is they never prepare you for what happens if you start growing down.

Parents.

Growing down meaning not necessarily planting roots or beautiful things coming to fruition, but growing down into yourself until there’s really nothing left of you.

When there’s nothing left of you, you end up locked up, you end up pumped full of head-pills, you end up hating and destroying yourself in any slow and painful way possible. When all of these things commence at once, you get the interesting breed of human known as It.

It thought It had complete control over Itself, right up to the point It was finished. So many signs throughout It’s short time on the planet had said ‘game over’. And each time It thought the game was done, It’s time had run out, the machine asked for another quarter to continue for a few more minutes of intensity and It couldn’t help but feed it. At least It knew what to expect. With giving up there was no certain outcome. It didn’t believe in heaven or hell or limbo, and It stuck always to what It knew.

At a young and tender age of 13, It thought to play a joke on It’s parents that any reasonable person would have questioned one’s sanity in doing so. Sitting in It’s dark room at mid-day, while family doings happened around It (but never with It), It came up with the plan that would make everyone from that day forward just so clear on what It’s place was in the world. In It’s world then and there. Meaning It’s parents.

Sneaking into the kitchen It grabbed a pellet shaped bottle of red food dye and an old sticky bottle of corn syrup (odd it being sticky as it had never been used to bake or cook with to It’s knowledge), tucked them up beneath It’s baggy sweatshirt and crept back into It’s room. Laying down on the bed with It’s father’s blue Bic razor next to It, along with a pair of kitchen shears- and just for a dash over over-the-top an over-sized kitchen knife, It squeezed the lot of the food dye into the Karo bottle and watched as the red slowly mixed with the clear syrup beautifully.

Taking a deep breath and closing It’s eyes, It dumped the entire contents of the red sugar mixture over It’s body focusing on It’s wrists and stomach and neck, then lay still and tried to make it look like It wasn’t breathing.

Moving on several years later, It was now 25.

“I don’t know who I am.”

Not the clichéd ‘who do I want to be when I grow up” but a more deep and thorough realization that It has no concrete idea of who It is. It’s just it.

What does It like? What does It hate? Who does It love? Who does It despise? What are It’s opinions? What are It’s taste in music, in food, in culture, in art? Does It really love animals as much as It thinks It does, is that the one true thing It knows about Itself? Or is it just simply a reflection of how It thinks humans should be: simple and easily amused and loyal and adoring to no end, no matter how bad you beat them down.

It doesn’t have a clue. It would have thought that by now that It’s life might have been sorted a little better than what it is. It thought that maybe It would have some promising career, probably sitting in an office rolling in the cash, a house that It could call It’s own (home), a car that It bought with It’s own hard-earned money, and maybe a partner to fill in the rest of the pieces.

Instead at 25, It is a mess. It was a mess then, and It is a mess now. Some things never change. The only change that has been somewhat of a glimmer of hope is at least the awareness of It’s mess of a self.

By 25, one would have think It had lived the life of a well-traveled, highly cultured, highly skilled, intelligent, thoughtful Human with all Mise en place.

While It may be well-traveled, and It may be highly intelligent (though that opinion does change on a day to day, hour by hour basis of how It’s currently viewing Itself), It is really, not very deep down, a very faulty individual.

It’s life has simply become a menagerie of masks, a party of shape-shifting, of disguises and lies.

If someone It admires likes something, It likes it too. If someone hates something, even ever so fiercely, It hates it just as much. It doesn’t have an identity. It is Jane Doe. It is who you want It to be because then, just maybe, you will admire It.

Back to resting in It’s bed in a pool of fake and sugary blood; well, it didn’t quite go as planned. At the time, It didn’t know what It was doing with this odd display of self-loathing, nor did It realize it was a test. It didn’t realize it might have been some pathetic cry out of desperation for attention and love that It so badly desired.

Instead of It’s fantasy-land thoughts of Mother and Father rushing in terrified that their Monster had finally decided It’s fate because home life was just too difficult, instead of remorse and tears, it was “oh”.

Don’t move, don’t look like you’re breathing. Come save me. Come love me. Just this once, I’m dying you know, can’t you see me dying and love me then? “Oh.”

She said to It’s Father “I think there’s something wrong with it”.

“Oh.”

And without checking to see what might have been “wrong”, It hears from the other room “She’s fine”.

“Oh.”

So It walked to the bathroom across the hall from It’s room and took a shower and scrubbed the red syrup off It’s disgusting, fat, repulsive body. Later on, when It next saw It’s parents, there was no mention of It doing That Thing. Nothing had happened.

Under the rug. Sweep, sweep away.

This is how life is supposed to be.

“Oh.”