I don’t think people know what it’s like to hate yourself. It’s not aching or constant. It doesn’t remind you that it’s there. It’s a crack in the ceiling that drips water into your living room. You don’t know how to fix it - you’re not a repairman. Instead, you put a bucket beneath it so carpet doesn’t get wet. Then you go out and get cheap pizza with your friends and play laser tag. You take pictures in four-shot photo booths with hearts in the margins. When you get home you pin it to the cork board in your kitchen beside all the others. Then you retire to the living room to relax and you see the bucket. It’s full to the brim; it can’t take another drop. So you pick it up, but the water splashes all over your carpet and nice out-with-your-friends clothes. You pour what’s left into the grass outside and put the bucket back in the living room. The carpet is covered in water, but you don’t have the energy to take care of it. You feel ten times heavier in your soaking wet clothes. You look at yourself in the hallway mirror, dripping and disheveled. Why didn’t you empty the bucket earlier? Why weren’t you more careful on your way to the yard? Why couldn’t you fix the crack in the ceiling? Why did you do this to yourself? Fix it, you say to yourself. But… your clothes are so heavy.
