all that remains of my teenage self are a bunch of scars

tl;dr: sometimes, a coming-of-age doesn't look like a coming-of-age.

Our morning alarm missiles my body.

In the aloneness of waking, I reach for my phone. A notification reads:

SOBER: THREE YEARS SELF-HARM FREE TODAY! LOG HOW YOU FEEL.

Fucking Christ. My pupils bleed into its whites. 

Still cocooned by the knit comforter, Gerald wiggles his hands through the sheets until they break into our bedroom’s sky. He finds my face.

“I’m so proud of you,” Gerald’s husky morning voice sings from the bright side of the bed. 

He kisses me before metamorphosing out of bed to feed the dog.

Instead of following him out from the covers, I close my eyes and time travel to the first day i decided to hurt myself. 

I navigate my mind back to the house on Oxford Drive. I peek through the floor vents of my past to see the 4,000-day younger version of me, documenting my then-open wounds through an iPhone photo shoot like some sick historian, as if the promised scars wouldn’t take up enough memory in my body’s storage. 

The sound of Gerald heating the kettle sends my mind back to the present moment. I need to get out of bed. I wander into the living room and notice a Stellar’s Jay in the backyard tree, watching through our window like my misery is its morning TV. 

I walk to the bathroom and switch on the light. Everything flips red as if my eyes were the bulbs' beating heart. I look for my face in the now-illuminated mirror, but I am not there. Instead, I see my younger self reflecting back, framed like a creased photo on my mother’s fireplace mantle.

The old me looks beautiful through my rose-colored exhaustion. With her deep left part and side-swept bangs. With her gappy, twisted teeth. With her practice smile.

Gerald enters the bathroom, and the image of my younger self dissipates. I see myself again.

“How are you feeling?” Gerald grabs his toothbrush.

I shrug and spit out my toothpaste. “Like me.”

I return to the bedroom and log into my therapy appointment.

“My teenage self is still so tangible,” I say when my therapist asks how I’ve been. “She controls every fucking thing I do. I feel my sadness and hers. I am Sisyphus, and she is my boulder.”

“Of course you feel her now,” My therapist replies. (They are wildly annoying due to their brilliance.) “You never let her feel back then.”

After the session, I post on Instagram about how beautiful and terrible it feels not to hurt myself. I cry, remembering how natural it feels for me to lie.

The comments filter in.

We love you, Ari. We are so proud of you. I hope I can get there one day.

I close the app.

I return to the bathroom and try to re-summon my teenage self. I say my name in the mirror three times, and nothing happens. I say I’m sorry in the mirror three times, and nothing happens. I say I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me in the mirror once, and nothing happens, but I get so nauseous that I have to sit on the tile. 

It has been three years since I last sat on my bathroom rug without staining it. Through the sickness of remembering and the upheaval of recovery, I trace each place I have ever hurt myself. How awful I was. How alive I still am.

The world pinkens. I stand up. I get dressed. I wear short sleeves and short shorts in the middle of November, and everyone cares, but not for the same reasons as before. I decide to go to the nail salon. I get the deluxe package. The nail tech massages my forearm, and I don’t avoid eye contact when her French tips crescent moon my scar tissue. 

I go to my doctor's appointment. I don’t flinch when the nurse maps my scars, looking for the best vein.

I realize that allowing my entire self to be seen in this world is not a form of self-harm. I apologize again to fourteen-year-old me for believing the only way to exist was in pieces. 

Once I return home, I think of a different way to re-summon my teenage self. I ask my closest friends, who never knew me at fourteen or twenty or twenty-four, if they have ever noticed my scars. 

Clara says yes, but that was like seeing a part of me she hadn’t seen yet. Caitlin says yes, but that it helped her better recognize me, as if seeing a birthmark or a freckle of my recovery. Kayla promises she has genuinely never seen, and this also makes me feel known.

Back in my bedroom, the world oranges, then yellows, then focuses into vivid everything. My teenage self rests on the backflip of my wrist, an unchained butterfly. I see her. She is beautiful. Wow, she is beautiful. She made it out of the chrysalis of recovery. I am the part of her that survived.

I realize a coming of age is not an arrival; it’s an escape. I crawled out of the Stockholm syndrome of my teenage self. 

I am stitched, calloused, and free. 

a song to add to ur rotation

this week’s song is all about adult encounters with the teenage self. it’s from a lesser-known artist that appeared on my Spotify’s Discover playlist and has quickly become my most replayed song for the week. it’s folky and pop-y; almost like Noah Kahan meets Lizzy McAlpine, in terms of sound and lyricism.

i don’t have screenshots of the lyrics because Spotify doesn’t have them yet, but if you’re like me and are constantly at odds with who you are and who you were, you’ll want to listen.

happy monday, happy listening!

---

housekeeping:

• unfold: poetry + prose, is available on amazon, bookshop, indigo, b&n, or wherever you get books <3

• you can still buy paper girl from amazon, barnes & noble, indigo, or your local indie.

• i love you. and i see you. and i am so glad you're here.

---

who i am: a writer, a lover, and a very Black + queer person. i love deeply, forget rarely, and spend most of my time cuddling with my dog, my cat, and my partner.

who i'm not: a therapist, mental health professional, or emergency service. i love hearing the stories of your experiences, but please don't send explicit or triggering details of your story without my prior consent. 

if you're in crisis, please call 911 or use any of the following resources:

• National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 988

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

• Crisis Text Line: Text HELP to 741741

• S.A.F.E. (Self Abuse Finally Ends): 1-800-DONT-CUT (366-8288)

• Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention: 1-800-931-2237

• RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network): 1-800-656-4673

• The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386