Summer Itch

Transcribed:

I was deplorably cross with myself that summer, unable to decide on anything- from what I wanted to do with my life to what I oughta smear on my toast in the morning. My life had become a stand-still frame, utterly paralyzed by the inability to decide, and often interrupted by this manic urge to scratch my skin seven layers deep. I had claw marks from my attempts at relieving this unabating full-body itch. Popped blood vessels left peppered trails of purple and red around the base of the collarbones and circulated the nooks of my elbows and knees. I was weepy, frustrated, confused and disgusted in the same hunk of matter- like a horribly rotten stew. I wrestled with the idea of feeling sorry for myself then subsequently despising the amount of pity allotted for someone who had all their practical needs met. That’s the part that is so abhorrent, or maybe the comedic irony of the drama- being discontent despite all that laid at my feet. It was a terrorizing cycle, one that drew me further and further from myself, yet kept me locked in the same room. To cope, out of pure desperation, I made myself into a character and pretended my emotions weren’t my own. I think this zapped me in the end of any feelings at all, and i slipped into a state of numbness entirely. But it had felt ever-so dire to hide from this welling surge of inadequacy. Now, I made her carry all the weight for me. While she whined and griped about things that don’t matter, I flirted with the idea of trying to heal- walking outside, saying affirmations, counting three good things in front of me, anything to rescue me from the rut I had fallen into. But it never amounted to much. The intensity of the itching prevailed and I devoted all my efforts to feeding her. She was insatiable. Sob stories, moments of cringe, records of shame, she devoured it all and pleaded for more. I thought that if these hurtful narratives existed under a pseudonym, then at the very least they would be put to some literary use rather than my own pathetic reality. Otherwise, I would continue to fly around the merciless vortex of self-pity, thrashing my irritated skin and bones against the walls of doubt that I had bred on my own. So I pushed her into the storm instead. She was whipped around the full perimeter, circulating ceaselessly, too helpless to exit into the stillness of safety. Rather selfishly, I reveled in the notion that I was in control of the chaos. But then, after a while, I noticed the winds began to slow, as if the storm had become bored of its performance. The muck and debris dissipated, clouds softened, and the air calmed. The dullness of it all left me strangely inspired. Inspired in the sense that all of this melodramatic anguish didn’t have to die in vain. This  itch beckons, even still, and I am still left with the visible reminders of scratch marks, scabs, and crushed up bottles of soothing lotion completely wrung out littered beneath my bed. But the invisible reminder I was left with seems to serve she and I the most, the reminder of just how easily humans allow themselves to self-destruct, just how pitiful it is that we neglect our own fragility in inclement weather.