A Birthday Present

My eldest brother paid for my first tattoo. It was a birthday gift for when I turned 19. I had gotten the word "In all our imperfections, we found ourselves" tattooed on my wrist as a reminder to not be so hard on myself. I am my own worst critic – I believe I am all the viruses of the world trapped in the body of a post-adolescent girl.

But the long, drawn out meaning behind my tattoo isn't the point of this post. My brother is.

About a month ago, we got into a huge argument. I had snapped at my younger brother for being an ungrateful brat. I don't deny that I may have been unnecessarily harsh on him (though I maintain that he was behaving like an ungrateful brat) but I was in a very bad headspace at the time. I'm not making excuses, physical force/abuse is unacceptable, but that was what kicked off my lapse of judgment.

My eldest brother confronted me about it. I would rather not divulge the words we exchanged but it was anything but civil and derogatory slurs were uttered/screamed.

After retreating into my room, and hearing my eldest brother tip over the contents of a shelve outside, I decided to cut myself.

It wasn't the first time I had done so; I started cutting in high school and picked it up again about two months before this incident. I went for my wrist. My tattoo tried to work its magic as it always has before; it seemed bolder than usual. It spoke to me "Don't do it. You're only human."

I sat for long moments crying and completely indecisive. Finally, in a moment of vulnerability, the turmoil in my head just piqued and I drew the blade in a diagonal stroke just below my tattoo. It was bleeding quite badly and I had a show to perform in 4 hours so I bandaged up and got ready to leave for the theater.

A month from the incident and the gash is still there. In fact, it is the most noticeable of all my self harm scars.

When I meet new people and they learn that I have a tattoo, I can never show them. When they ask, I tell them what it reads and I say to them "Yes, it was a birthday gift from my brother." While the scars were still fresh and red, I even made the conscious effort to wear something long-sleeved every time I went out.

My dad and eldest brother have noticed the scars but I never told them the specific reason behind them. Whenever I get into minor arguments with my eldest brother nowadays, I back away as soon as possible.

But sometimes I wonder how he would react if he knew that the worst scar I have, the scar that could have with slightly more pressure landed me in the hospital, is a result of the things we said that day. I'm not saying the scar is his fault. My mind is tragically not my own and it gives me bad thoughts.

I'm looking at my wrist now and I don't think the tattoo says as much about me as the scar does.

So. Here's one more flaw to add to the growing list of my imperfections.

A Race to Nowhere

It was coming for him and no matter how hard he told himself to wait for it, to embrace it, he found himself running. Running as far and as fast as he could. Not me, he thought. After all I’ve done, not me. He tried to outrun this force but he knew he would eventually tire. Still, he ran...

Until he didn’t. He was spent. He stopped, turned around, ready to accept his fate like all the others. To his surprise, it was gone. His pursuer was nowhere to be found. The realization that he had beaten the ultimate test, however, did not come with elation.

He had been prepared to celebrate, to bask in his glory. After all, a whole new world of possibilities was now open to him. But, shockingly, none of them seemed that spectacular anymore. He found himself without purpose. He was prepared for anything but this. All he felt now was loneliness. An infinite degree of isolation and un-being.

His triumph, if he chose to call it that, had outdid him and suddenly he became immensely aware of how insignificant he was in the grand scheme of things.

And then finally, he understood. Life is nothing without death and immortality is the ultimate curse. He had not won; he was being penalized.

With this in mind, he tightened his laces and started walking back, searching for the one thing he had been trying so hard to escape.

He no longer feared mortality; he craved it.