Brown

Warning: This story handles themes of self-harm, mental illness, and suicide.

I was scared of hallways. I was scared of hallways, doors, corners and the tiny boxes pretty girls lived in. I was scared of being so afraid that in my pain I would want to hurt. It's a comfortability of mine. When you live with so many rooms, stairwells and end credit scenes you learn the best way to cope with your pain is through more pain. While I've heard the fabled tales of girls with razors, and boys with bulimia, I found it quite pleasing to hurt myself with food. Overeating was the pain, and self-starvation was the reward. That is when I got scared. When I got confident I got big. Really big. One would describe me as the smartest, kindest AND most appreciated member of society. As the definition of sex appeal, I know all men want to feel my bones against their skin. A perfectly form-fitted skeleton, the type of beauty reserved for Hollywood and happy people. I could be that pretty girl— But I wasn’t yet. I spent the days sun-tanning in fluorescent light and wearing brown. I ate bran, and fishnets made me feel naked. 

“You can’t put them on, even if you could, you couldn't even pull them off.”

I could only pull them off.

My boyfriend would describe me as cardboard, “familiar, yet necessary for the efficiency of all inefficient people.” It was the most loving way to be disposable, or worse, recyclable. He was adjusted to my decomposing nature, though he could never understand it. He was a routine person. No matter when “soon” was he’d always be there at 3. Opinions were often made but seldom revealed, though I knew that he was scared. Maybe not of me but rather what my fears suggested. It wasn’t just the doubt and instability, but the heart-shaped pills that stopped sex and promoted anesthesia. No matter how much they looked like sprinkles, I couldn’t make them sweet.

I dove myself into the pursuit of an-other identity, a shopping addiction that promised life. Hundreds of them. I wanted to be seen. I wanted pink plush pillows in a studio near L.A, and a vintage letterman to hang on the wall of my New-York Victorian estate. I was first inspired by those pretty girls in the tiny boxes.

And one of them spoke. 

“So you’ve come to me for advice about how to be a model. Living a picture. Loved and adored by thousands. Everyone wishing to be you and those who don’t want to either fuck you or kill you, or both?”

“Yes, but do you really think I could be like you?” Sure, I was sure enough, but deep down I doubted the do-ability of me into an idol girl. But that wasn't an option, I was held in deep devotion.

“You have to use your natural charm! Find colors and thrift for the season. You’ll look so cute you're guaranteed to be an influencer! Remember you can get more clothes and more styles if you buy second-hand!” The tiny box spoke.

But I already had two hands. No matter.

Cute is hot. People like Cute. People like you, no, love you. People love me—or at least they will.

She was Aggie, only existing for the fall season. To her, every day was a carnival caramel-apple craze haze. She demanded perfection, from the way she set the leaves to how she held the harvest moon, in a cup, and now I was her coffee.

Though, the thing about coffee is its taste and quantity. I was in a cup, ready to be customized and special, only consumed as such. A rare delicacy that everyone watching would see, and yet, I wasn’t. The thing about coffee? It doesn’t rot, but it decomposes. 40 minutes ticked. I was cold and seeping into myself, I needed to act now, she just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t fast enough. I need this. I would say that I thought I’d die. My vision for myself was otherworldly, the kind of purpose that most will never find. So that is when I started to find. 

As I sorted through the racks of the 5th thrift store, I began to notice a pattern. Not in the style, she was turning me into but in the way of the store itself. Girls like me, hoards of them, hoarding clothes to have many, buy many, look cute and prosper—- and I was in the crossfire. 

It was this easy. Just making a list of tens, no, hundreds of people I could be on-demand. Like buying a human soul. But what would be my spark? If I were to cut myself open would I bleed frosting? Pumpkin spice latte? Or maybe even my olanzapine. What do I see in me?

“That one,” I said. I wanted to be that one. Someone, anyone. Engrossed and gross, I was unaware of what I even saw or let alone meant as I stared deeper into the mirror, I drowned in my reflection. The deeper I sank, the lighter it became.

There was a voice.

“This is your new identity. Want to survive? All you can do is be this. Be her. Be the girl wearing this outfit. Live her life. Walk like her. Talk like this and if you DARE break it? Then everyone you love and want to love will leave you.”

As if a pin dropped, the store was empty, all the people gone, just clothes, and ghosts of people that used to haunt them. I wasn’t buying, I was stealing. Not physically but emotionally I violated their spirits. Forcing them to come into mine, suddenly, I was aware of all the mirrors, not the one, the thousands, each piece of clothing shining at me as if they focused hard enough they could burn my flesh and reveal the reflection they were seeking.

So I covered myself.

It was a beach full of salt in the sand that God walked on. I ran.

Each post I made dropped salt, bigger and larger amounts with each scandalous reveal. I knew how to get what I wanted fast. It wasn’t a matter of time, consistency, or living a fantasy. It was using the system. Playing the game. Replacing all the sand with salt so that you still sparkle while poisoning the water. I eroded, but it was fun. I was self-destructing pretty. One day the punches felt like kisses and the next my pills were pastel and star-shaped. I built the sky. By controlling the sky I gained a specific height, the ability to hang and place. I could suspend disbelief through ribbon, rope, and lights, and this got people intrigued. My patrons? Stuffed plushies and broken barbiturates.

My boyfriend knocked. He was shocked by my success. I became bigger than ever anticipated. In his envy he couldn’t stop, stop saying something, but I could barely hear him. His tears formed into a northern downpour. I loved the rain.

All the back-talk and negativity? Just a product of a wounded ego, but little did he know I was him. I was everyone. Everyone’s mirror, everyone’s best friend, and worst nightmare. I was sexy and sweet. Bimbofied but modest. I was HER.

I climbed the ladder of pink string lights, reaching for the Olan-dazing stars. They made me grow bigger, eating each one by one. I got big. Really Big, burning. I saw myself Incinerating, like the waxwings that challenged the Icarian sun. And just as bright, a fluorescent light turned on. And I finally saw what I escaped before. The door was brown, the hallway grew teeth and I fell, swift and hard, towards the brown floor. It all became so closer and clear, the souls merging and amalgamating into each other, but not into mine. There were no more mirrors, clothes, or coffee. I was caught by the pink lights, they danced and hugged around my neck. I was no longer afraid.