It’s not that I’m secretive and misleading or even all that misunderstood.
I simply wanted to be everyone and see everything, all at once.
Who I was in the present didn’t matter to me. I was always
concerned with who I was going to be tomorrow, a month from now, ten years from
now. I wanted to save myself from who I was the day before. I wanted so
desperately to outrun that girl.
The girl who swam like a mermaid in her grandmother’s pool;
The girl who collected stories and devoured them word by word on the top of the
bunk bed she shared with her sister; The girl who retreated to the PE locker
room, earbuds nestled in her freshly pierced ears and a cigarette draped
between her fingers; The girl tangled in someone else’s warm sheets.
I knew everything she did—every crime and would-be crime she
committed. I was there. But I still
don’t know a goddamn thing about who she was. And let me tell you, this
girl-monster could both run and hide.
So I chased after bigger, better self ideals in fear of my
past. And there it lies. My past didn’t make me. With all of its clandestine
allure, my future did. In a series of
several fell swoops, I became infatuated with uncertainty. I was uncertainty. It was a constant game
of tag, and I was always IT. No matter how fast I ran or who I caught up to. I
was always stuck with myself.
