Growing Into My Skin

There is a short story that I have been trying to finish for over a year now, and it finishes with the image of a man drowning a young woman who has done something wrong. It is a big wrong but she doesn’t understand why he can’t love her enough to forgive.

I’ve typed out the stages repeatedly and tried to fill in the sentences with these hollow metaphors and images that just dance around what an awful thing that male protagonist is doing, and how Christ like and sacrificial he sees himself. He created this strong alpha man who would sacrifice himself but didn’t have the heart, instead just a woman he was desperately in love with had to suffer. It’s unfair that he chased and begged and nailed down someone knowing fully what they were then dragged the world around her into a cold snap.

It’s so incredibly fascinating that as someone who fears death, commitment and, honestly, most men- these are the three things I crave in a cycle each month. As a teenager I felt a fire in my belly to be who I wanted to be and as independent as I could be, here I am writing sad stories about men who don’t care. I’m a woman who excels in getting what she wants and then copes badly when she doesn’t get anything. I’ve only had one unsuccessful interview, I’ve never been the one who was broken up with, I’m generally very lucky at being able to convince someone to stay in my life a while longer. So what comes now? More nostalgia? I’m fed up with my heart making me dedicate my twenties to breaking again and again.

I don’t have a burning for that short story these days because I don’t know who the man could be anymore, everyone merged together. All the clarity I had in my life has been washed away by grey day after grey day where all I hear is the thumping of my heart at night and can exhale visibly into a cold bedroom in the morning. I hope you’ve come to me and I just need to sort myself out for a little bit, maybe you’ll still be there when everything is a bit more colourful. You might have been the one who is so creative and passionate it makes my hands ache to touch you, or the one who I wish wanted me back when I put myself out on a limb for the first time in months. There’s a lot of maybes and a lack of confidence in who I am, but I feel even more shaky not knowing who you are. It’s natural to want something to cling to in the pitch black night even if it is the back of a beast, so for now I won’t be too harsh on myself or the shapeshifting animal.

I think after this section of dark and disease is over in my life I will take the time to be the woman I want to be. I’ll be making time to eat honeycomb raw in my hands and lick my fingers to enjoy the profanity of the expense, whilst I lie sprawled out and read grand thick novels about women who couldn’t make decisions either but they were okay in the end. Maybe I will be able to write like I have a fever sitting in my wrists, singing badly without fear of my neighbours overhearing. Floating day to day in white dresses without caring about spillage or stains, enjoying the terrifying way I can let someone admire me. Each Sunday I’ll crawl along the ground on my knees to find the floorboards of a church where around me I can listen to the voices of other women singing to The Virgin and asking when we will be safe again.

When all this is over I will have grown into my skin.