Identity Crisis

                                                  Identity Crisis



My back slides down the wall, knees buckling. I transfer from standing, to sitting on the bathroom floor. I clutch the pregnancy test in my hands, fingers wound so tightly around it that my knuckles are a white-purplish color. I swallow away the lump in my throat, blink back tears and focused completely on the tiny screen. Seconds race by in my head. All I can hear is the sound of my ragged breathing and my frantic heart. The sleepless nights, the constant wave of regret. It's about to end. Or get a lot worse.

         The little chicken timer sits on my bathroom counter above me. When I was a little girl my mom would bake. My favorite was always her apple pie. She had a knack of making the filling perfectly sweet and the crust just flaky enough. Never too sour or rich. She would call me over to her, curling her finger in towards herself, beckoning me forward. “How would you like to be my special timer, huh?” she would ask me. I would nod and smile. I liked to help. She would hand me the chicken timer. I would twist the dial to were she pointed to and wait patiently on the kitchen floor, face cupped in my hands, elbows on knees, and stare at the chicken until the dial reached zero. It would make a “tick, tick, tick” sound right up until the end, counting the seconds by. Even though I knew it was coming, I would always jump when it let out the loud “skwack”,

          Once I told my mom, smugly, “Momma, that's not right.” I pointed to the little red and white polka-dot apron around the chickens waist. She looked at me and smiled. Her eyes were the brightest blue. They were warm and beautiful and I could see myself reflected there when I rifled through them. I could see love there. And I liked how when she smiled it seemed to crawl up her face and settle around her eyes. She took the timer in her weathered hands and said “huh, you know baby, you're right.”

         It seemed cruelly ironic that I would use the chicken timer now.

         These days its hard to believe nobody can see my secret burning through me , giving me away instantly. Screaming, 'Look at me now! I'm not who you thought I was! You thought you knew me. All those years, you thought you knew me...you have no idea...' This secret is killing me. Slowly it's taking the life out of me, sucking me dry. I wonder if, when this is over, the hunch that has commandeered my back will ever go away. Will I ever be able to stand straight again? To look somebody in the eye?

          Theres this knot building in my chest, and it doesn't get tighter like you'd expect. It expands and pushes through me. Its pushing me apart. Everyday I wrap my arms around myself in an effort to hold myself together. At school. At home. At church.  I let it push me now. I don't have the strength to hold back anymore. I try to swallow but my the muscles in my neck don't seem to be working. The test is held in both of my hands only inches from my eyes. A thousand times worse is this than any test anxiety I might have had at school. This is one test I can't afford to fail. My elbows rest on each of my bent knees. My eyes go crossed in their effort to keep the test in view. I struggle to uncross them. “tick, tick, tick, tick, tick” There are no words for this. “tick, tick, tick, tick, tick” I'm slipping. “tick, tick ,tick ,tick ,tick” please God, give me strength.  “skwack!” I gasp. When had I stopped breathing?  A little blue line fades across the first, forming a plus sign.

         The sound coming out of my mouth is not human. The test is falling in slow motion out of my hand. Seconds race by. Shouldn't it have hit the floor already? Do the laws of physics no longer apply? The test reaches the hard linoleum at last with a soft clink. The front hits first, sending the back after. They play drummer boy for only a moment before the test lies still. What just happened? Oh, yeah. I scramble to my feet, using the counter for support.  My reflection stares back at me in the mirror across from the marble sink. But wait...this can't be me. My eyes rake down this strangers body. Her dark red hair sitting on top of her head in a clumsy bun. Her grimace of almost physical exhaustion.  There are dark black circles under her blue-green eyes. Her forehead is creased with deep trenches as she tried to comprehend things beyond her thirteen year old capacity. Her shoulders slumped over the sink. Her hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard that the veins are popping out under the skin. Her chest heaving. The sound of her breath like out of control wind.  Her wrinkled blue t-shirt. Her stomach...

          My hand fly to my stomach instinctively. I pull the cotton of my t-shirt out of the way and study the plains of my stomach. Our stomach. My stomach lurches. I'm falling across the bathroom floor. I catch myself on the toilet seat just in time to rip it open and vomit violently inside, as if confirming the test that is now forgotten on the floor. kneeling in front of the toilet, my hands still grip the edges of the seat. I suddenly grab the chicken timer off of the counter and hurl it across the room where it smashes against the bathtub wall and bursts open revealing countless cogs, springs and screws. The tears gush out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I gasp in air then hiccup on it. I stand up shakily and try to steady myself on the walls, my black painted fingertips, blacker compared to the white of the skin, press into the walls making my cuticles go bleach white. I sob into the cream colored walls. My breathing accelerates. The walls are closing in on me. Of course I will burst before  the walls crush me, right? The room is spinning. Random thoughts are bursting through my brain. “Momma thats not right.”  “Huh, you know baby, you're right.”  “Skwack!” I'm hyperventilating. I have to get out. I have to run and not look back. I whip around and sprint out the door and down the hallway. I notice dimly how my feet snagged on the out of date shag carpet. I have never gone insane before but I'm pretty sure this was how it feels. I can't feel the carpet I was running on. I can't feel the picture frames I am ripping of the wall and smashing as I run, or the burning of the cuts the embedded glass make in my hands. I am having a moment. Possibly the biggest one of my life.

          I trip over my own feet but the sliding door catches my searching, outstretched hands. I grasp franticly for the door handle, find it, and I swing the door back. It rebounds and almost crushes my calf as I fly past. I dart across the yard, my arms swinging wildly at my sides, and I rip the gate from my path.

         On top of every punishment I'm going to receive, on top of every tear I'm going to induce of the people I love, I am also going to owe my brother a new bike. It's not like it's his fault he keeps his bag containing his glove and baseball bat right next to his bike, right outside the fence in our backyard, its just in my path, cluttering up my already too cluttered thinking space. I will destroy everything as if to mirror what I have just done to my life. I will hurt them as much as this is hurting me. If there is ever a moment where I would understand the phrase “misery loves company” it's now. I consider dimly how it's a good thing that I'm surrounded by inanimate objects.

         I don't know exactly how far this alley goes, but I do know that it connects most of the neighborhoods in town by a series of intersecting, hobo infested alleyways, resembling the spokes of a wheel. Considering this wheel is about ten miles in diameter, this could be my escape for quite some time. I'm far away from civilization now. Far away from my brothers bike, that he was so excited to unwrap last Christmas. Far away from that unholy blue plus sign. Far away from the cat that hissed violently and took refuge in a small shrub after having its tail trodden upon. Far away from the smashed remains of my neighbor's garden gnomes. Pity. I think I smashed the fat Santa Claus wearing overalls and holding a fishing pole. I'd always liked that one. Even if I feel like doing anymore damage I can't. I dropped the baseball bat in a bush about a mile ago. Now I'm running. Trying so hard to leave it all behind.

         The cold November air is whipping around my red, tear-stained face. It feels raw and tingly being so unprotected. I'm sprinting down the alleyway now. I'm nearing the middle of the wheel. Its funny how an hour and twenty-seven minutes ago that was what I wanted. I thought running away would ease my meltdown, but it's not. The two fences on either side of me that separate the neighborhood from the next over, are closing in on me just like the walls in my bathroom.

          As I run, I'm sobbing violently. New tears are replacing the old dried ones in a never ending stream.  The wind surges down my throat. It makes me choke. My lungs rise and fall quickly. I've never been much of a runner.

         The agony runs through my veins and it feels as though I'm burning alive. The tears burn as they roll down my cheeks as though the burning agony is leaking out of my eyes and clouding my vision.

          My left, old, dirty converse sneaker catches on a rock and I sprawl across the wet, knee-length grass. I feel the wet earth under me and I felt the sting of the flesh tear from my knees and palms. Blood flows down my shins and wrists. I scramble to my feet, and in a new broken-stepped stride, run on.

         I ignore the stinging in my palms and the dark red, almost black, stains spreading over the knees of my jeans. My muscles stretch tighter as I will myself to go faster, as if, if I run fast enough I could leave this unfamiliar, burning part of me behind. My shoelaces slap against my legs, being tugged undone a long time ago, the mud an adhesive. You could no longer read the “all-star” written on the backs of my converse through the muddy slush they were covered in. I wonder how far can I run. How long was the alley going to stretch on? I have to be at least to the middle by now. My hands and knees throb with a consistent sharp stab. You know, I think I am slowing a little bit. The minutes stretch on a little longer. I'm defiantly slowing down. My run is more of  a fast injured walk now. Soon it was just me trying to stumble through the weeds, my  clumsy feet catching on loose mud and rocks. After producing a couple of more uneven steps I stopped completely.

My legs, all too eager before to run, now gave out under me and I crumple to the ground. I laid in the alley limbs splaying out, closely resembling a broken doll. I can feel the earth underneath me, jagged and rough, sharp points pressing into my side. Silent tears flow heavily down my cheeks. My insides twist with regret and shame. I could physically twist in agony, if there was any fight left in me.

Minutes pass as I lay here, turning into fifteen, twenty, a half hour. I lose track of time and slipped gracefully and mercifully into “being.”

Reaching one shaking, half-delirious hand out in from of me, I pluck a small dandelion from the dirt, mesmerized in my stoned state, by the simplicity, yet also the intricate detail of it. I part my chapped, cold lips and blow at the little wisps. I can see my breath come out in clouds in front of me.

          I note how it probably isn't normal to be jealous of a flower. Lucky little asexual weed. There weren't any strings attached to producing a dandelion. The only danger they faced was being parted with the ground to give a little kid that brief, fleeting moment of joy.

          I twirled the now bare flower between my forefinger and thumb. But I dropped it suddenly when I saw the bright green stem stained a crimson red.

         My hand hangs lifeless and blood stained. I don't want to think about it. No. It's easier to pretend I'm simply out for a jog. Not escaping, not shirking my responsibilities. Too late. I no longer recognize this hand. Bleached in late, cold, afternoon sunlight it appears pale and bony. This hand once belonged to a careful, quiet girl. I was the last person people would expect this from and right now, in this moment, I hate myself. I have destroyed my life. I have destroyed a child's life, and where the hell did I get off thinking I had any right to do that? When the hell did I become so cliché?!

          I don't know how to be this girl. I'm not prepared for this.  I….the old me...was always prepared. Could I handle the stares, the whispers? Stupid question. Obviously not or I wouldn't be here. I had always cringed at “that girl”. Now, what? I am her? I didn't want that. I never had. But thats not how it works, is it? In doing the one thing I thought would change myself I have only made myself the faceless girl once again, swallowed up and forgotten by the many before me. I have gained not the respect of my peers but the pity and gossip.

I lay, broken and alone, and think of my family’s possible reaction. My stomach does a back flip. My father’s already sad, hazel, deep-set eyes would be clouded with disappointment, hurt and anger. My part as role-model will be destroyed between my brother and I. What a waste. what a disappointment. To think, I will go from young girl with a bright future ahead, to the daughter and sister we don't talk about anymore, the one we don't invite over for Christmas or Thanksgiving and the one we suddenly stop bragging about to our friends. This is the the worst punishment I will receive. The second worst is knowing all the while that the only thing I have for them is a feeble apology for my vicious betrayal.

I can't help but wonder what age is too soon to look back on your life and feel nothing but regret. Some might say thirteen is too soon. I've played the Christian card all my life as if I had room to judge others, because thats who I am. I am the one who turned a prayer into a gossip session. I am the one who saw who I was becoming, and I didn't care. I am the one who put others down instead of being there for them, to say if you need anything I'm here, if you need somebody to talk to I'm here, or I love you, it's gonna be okay. And I am the one... I am the one who did this. As I lay in the alley, and realize the full impact of what I have done, I wonder for the umpteenth time, who am I now? The truth is, I have no idea.