Splitting

I carefully pick at the strands of healthy brown hair that have split ends. They stand out from the others so much that I itch to rip them open. With this and only this, I have extreme patience. I deny the urge to pull out the entire hair and instead, separate the fork with my nails and slowly tear the two edges apart as the weaker strand curls at the end. As soon as it is pulled away from the rest of the hair it has to be out of my sight. If one hair happens to catch a hold of my blouse I swat at it continuously as though some foreign jungle insect had carelessly landed on me in search of fresh skin to nibble on.
A loud horn sounds and I snap myself back into the setting. I must have sat at the green light for quite a while. My foot hits the accelerator and I take a glimpse of the pile of cars that were waiting for me to move. In the corner of my eye I spot another split-end beckoning me.

I can't really recall when this all started. When I was little, I used to bite my nails down till they bled and as an adult it has graduated from nail biting, to cleaning my nails out with my teeth and chewing ravenously on the tiny bits of nail and skin that grow on the side of my cuticles and riping off the pieces of flesh that look out of place no matter how much it hurts or bleeds. My fingertips have become calloused from this and my hair, although seemingly healthy on the outside, grows new split-ends in, what seems like, an even quicker manner. I teeter-totter on the edge of obsession, or maybe obsessive compulsive disorder, cause I do these things to block out the ugly visions my mind imagines whenever it feels obliged to do so. I can't recall when I started being so messy at home but so neat when I cook or work. I can't recall when anything on a desk in front of me had to be placed in similar or complimentary angles to each other in order for me to be comfortable. I can't recall what triggered the anxiety I feel, but I guess it doesn't really matter. All that matters, is that my father was an abusive alcoholic and my mother was a strict and religious woman.

Muffled crying, a slurred and angry mumble, my mom's yelp, and Rocky (my sister) and I cringing at the sound of every thud and dull thump as we clung onto each other in the dark. That's all I remember.I can only bring up one night of abuse my mother tolerated when there were so many. It's strange to me that my mind must have repressed all other recollections of my dad's drunken rage. My timid, quiet, mild tempered father who up until about 12 years ago was a violent alcoholic. He is me and my sister's savior and the only person we call in times of need other than each other. Somewhere in the mess of our lives, me and Rocky began to despise our mother. She was a devout Jehovah's Witness and in my early adult years, I began to realize that her manic religious bouts didn't have as much to do with the religion itself as it did with her own state of mind. She would freak out if Rocky or I didn't attend church. I know in her eyes one of the reasons I'm going to Hell, aside from all of my other mortal sins, is because as a child, I occasionally skipped out on Sunday service to stay home with my dad and watch the Dallas Cowboys play football. If only Danny White knew that he contributed to my sin. Yet, on the nights that my mother was either sick of us or wanted me and Roxann in bed, she'd let us steal sips of Bud Light at eight or nine o'clock at night to aid us in nodding off. It never made sense that my mother could get me drunk to knock me out when I was six years old and it was okay, but I couldn't miss one of five church sessions a week without being condemned. I mean, does God really require that much devotion? Did he really want me to be squirming in the puke-green colored, seventies looking seats while my mom raised an eyebrow at every movement for FIVE days out of the week? My mom's life was a mess though, and I think that us attending church was the only thing she felt she had full control over.

My childhood was a confusing one. As a kid I desperately wanted to fit in but I was always being made fun of. I was the "fat little girl" that went to "that weird church" and I was the only kid in my class that would stand out of respect for the National Anthem and the Pledge, but wouldn't sing or place my hand over my heart because my religion prevented me from doing so. Sure I was weird, but everything in my heart told me I shouldn't be. I'll never forget the day my mom sent me to school wearing a white t-shirt with grey kittens, bright green knee-length shorts, socks pulled up past the bulge of my calf, and sloppy brown sandals. I wanted to be a pretty girl and she was dressing me like a cat-crazy bag-lady. I was tired of living poor and wondering why all the other kids had new clothes and toys. Even though I should be thankful for the talents and skills my mother helped me to acquire, I blame her for a lot of the things I went through as a child and for the way that I perceive men and my relationships.

I'll always remember Second grade and my first encounter with a boy. This too changed my perception of life altogether. It was cool and bright and I was getting ready to walk back into the hallway after recess when I lifted up my head and saw him. He was walking purposefully towards me while all the other kids were walking back to the building just as I was. Adam. He smiled this evil half smile at me and all I could do was put my head back down to avoid his eyes. His face was smudged with dirt and God knows what other grime and his teeth were dirty and chipped. Adam was the kind of filthy kid you imagine has a colony of lice breeding incestuously atop his disheveled head of dark hair. I wanted him to disappear. I wanted to close my eyes and shake him away like all of my other little day dreams and hallucinations, but he was right in front of me. The whole thing happened so quickly. Before I knew it, he had cupped my entire left buttock with his hand so hard he nearly fingered me. I stood in shock as the bell rang and he ran away carefree. I wondered if anyone had seen or if I should tell, but I couldn't move. I instantly hated him, but the next morning in my G/T class, I covered my face with my hair and bit my nails considering the thought that maybe Adam liked me. All I knew about men was what I had seen in my parent's relationship; men are violent and sexual with women they love. I'd never look at a guy the same way again.

Among many other things I was a runaway. Sure childhood was very confusing for me but adolescence was even worse. Black tops and baggy jeans were my every day attire in sixth grade. I stayed quiet in class and only made friends with fellow rejects. I wanted to be accepted instead of letting my mind imagine snickers and gossip going on behind my back. I wasn't anywhere near important enough for anyone to gossip about though so I knew that hallucination wasn't real. I had a desperate crush on a boy named Roger and when I found out he liked my "friend" Amanda I felt the insecurity creep into me and settle itself inside me. It never left. She and Roger became a couple and I felt that she would call me on purpose to boast about his kisses and the flowers he'd buy her when they were on sale in the cafeteria. At this stage in life I started to turn my anger to my mom. It was her fault once again that I had failed to obtain something I wanted. I was unpopular and fat because of her and I wouldn't have been so weird if she had never made me a Jehovah's Witness. I wondered why all the boys I liked would never like me and if filthy, ugly Adam was the only boy that would ever touch me at all. Then I was introduced to Pizza-face Paul through Rocky's chunky but outgoing friend Stella. He was the only person that seemed to really be interested in me and he had never seen me before. After constant hidden telephone conversations and our first meeting, I disclosed to Paul my decision to run away. Paul was very kind to me. He asked me to carefully re-think my notion to flee but assured me that if I had no place to stay, his mother would let me live there with them. I was foolish in my reconsideration. Instead of trying to find reasons to stay, Paul's invitation stood out and I made plans to board a bus and head downtown after school. My mother was always late picking me up from school so I knew I had at least thirty to forty-five minutes to disappear before she'd realize something was up. When I told my friend Miriam, she almost didn't believe me. At my locker I showed her my black Jan-sport backpack stuffed with clothing and she asked if she could come along. Now when Miriam's brother Hector found out, he said he couldn't let his sister and me go alone, so after school the three of us quickly walked to the number 44 bus stop and made our way to the mall downtown on the River walk.

My heart fluttered lightly with thoughts of freedom. I could never again be told I can't have a certain type of friend or go over to someone's house because they were "worldly". I wasn't going to burn for mistakes made as a child. I would have all the things I always wanted. I could make it on my own.

I'd love to say it worked out for me, but the truth is the cops were called, Paul's mom made us leave, Hector decided to go home, and I realized what a disaster the night of my first make-out session was. Miriam and I were hungry and tired and it was five thirty in the morning. We managed to get some pity donuts off of a baker that had opened his store early and with the few dollars Hector left Miriam, we took another bus out to some foreign side of town. Paul had suggested I sleep at the shelter right around the corner from his home; I flat out refused. I would rather sleep in the woods with no blanket or water than sleep in a shelter, and so that's exactly what I did. We were lucky it wasn't that cold. I had already tried to bleach my hair and so I shaved off my eyebrows and stole an eyebrow pencil to change my look. I failed horribly. My hair turned an ugly orange-brown color and my eyebrows were lopsided and dotted with blood from the razor cuts. We were caught the very next afternoon. Miriam and I were taken to a clinic because our mothers wanted to know if we were still virgins. I hadn't seen the dark hickeys that had been left on my neck until we entered the clinic. My mother was furious when the nurse explained to her that since I said I was still a virgin there would be no way for me to be tested. Apparently even Miriam thought Paul and I had done more than just make out. The truth that I really was still a virgin was mine alone to keep.

One afternoon, after she repeatedly called me a whore... and a slut... and a tramp, I nearly killed my mother. I had been biting my nails to try and calm myself down but I finally broke. When attempts to hit her over the head with a glass tumbler failed and she grabbed my wrists I used all the strength I had in me to shove her into the glass coffee table that was in front of us. I wasn't sorry, not even after the cops came and threatened to take me to Juvie. She claimed she'd set me straight and the officers left. My mother would never call me a whore again and I told her to make sure she got that "straight". After that, my mother followed me around at school. She was there in the morning, during our period switch, and during lunch. It was the first week of my life that she was ever early to pick me up from school.