I can’t grapple with – understand, process, comprehend – the fact that I am, by all evidence against me, very mentally ill. I am sick. I am weak and guilty. There is something – a variety of things – wrong, here. My mother is published in numerous medical journals.
On spring break last year, in March of 2022, my family and Daisy’s family went to the Dominican Republic. And I tried and failed, in this pocketless, sunshiny, sleeveless world – for is that how I see the world? Where can disguise what, where is safe to be and remain relatively anonymous? – to hide my vaping habit and my burn scars.
The vape I left out on the hotel dresser when Daisy and I returned to the room drunk on all-you-can-drink margaritas (or something more Daisy for her, like a mule or a manhattan). I woke in the morning, under a thin sheet despite the frigid air-conditioned temperature, to my mother shaking me awake. I buried my head further under the sheet, hungover, but the yellow light came through nonetheless, and even when I closed my eyes my vision was pulsing red behind the eyelids. Let the light in, at your back door yelling cause I wanna come in. She shook me again.
Do you know what this is? What’s what. I opened my eyes, looked at it, saw the black cylinder. I was instantly, heart-poundingly awake, because I was 17 on vacation with my mother, and I was about to get old-school busted and iced out. I knew it. Oh– that’s Daisy’s. (beat) What is it?
Buried my head further in the sheet. Mumbled, to seem unconcerned. I’ll explain later, don’t worry.
She walked away, into the master suite off of the room where I slept, the fold-out couch centered in marble. My heart would not stop beating, faster and faster. Panic. Panic. I tried to think but no plot would come. I knew I was fucked. I heard her enter the room from underneath the light shield. She took the sheet off of my head and I squinted, lying.
I know what this is. I looked it up. Oh. yeah. Is this yours? No, it’s Daisy’s. (beat) Are you sure?
I sat up in bed. Looked at her so honestly. I have always been a phenomenal liar. That’s what you learn to do, when you live in a house where truth is not rewarded, and is rather punished, and lies are accepted or praised if told with enough conviction. Mom. Come on. What, Iya? I have a right to ask! You know me, I wouldn’t do that. Have you tried it? Well, yeah, but I didn’t like it. (so classic) Besides, you’re literally a lung doctor. Like, I know better. I would never do that. (beat. Long beat) Are you sure. Yes.
She stared at me a moment longer.
Okay. I trust you.
Hilarious. Peak comedy. I watched her go back to her room, then laid back down, sheetless now, so I could observe her. She gathered her things to go to the beach. She put on a floppy sunhat, a white linen sundress. She has always been girly, she sometimes wears barrettes in her hair. Stunted, perhaps? Menopausally regretful, sorry, apologetic to herself? How cruel I can be. I am certain that I will never know the answers to these questions. She didn’t say much, and then said,
I’m going,
And left the room, the hotel door shutting solidly behind her, its lock brand-new. I watched the door. She didn’t mention the encounter ever again.
The scars. The burn scars. K A.
When I was 15 or 16 – genuinely, I have no idea nor distinction between the two, because both years were largely spent isolated and alone and quiet, in my attic-room in the dark, with yellow LED lights sometimes because I believed they made me more cheerful, a sunshiny lamp that sits in my dorm room now because I know it makes me more cheerful – I was feeling very sad. Depressed, I guess. I was never a true believer in mental illness. But I have known the word depressed since I was very young, and a tomboy, and told my mother I was depressed because she was making me wear a sparkly butterfly t-shirt.
So when I was 15 or 16. I was having a hard night. I remember now, it’s come to me. I was 16. My friends had just iced me out and ruined my life for getting with Macy’s ex-boyfriend in the back of his car. I called the suicide help line – Kids Help Phone – because I believed I was about to die. I texted them instead of calling because I lost my nerve. They tried to help but they did nothing and still I was about to close my eyes and sleep forever and die in a heavy state. Like when I overdosed on codeine pills and threw up on the carpet and had since moved my bed to cover the stain. I felt like that and hadn’t realized, yet, how unhelpful sobriety was to managing and accepting one’s own life. I got up. I don’t know how the idea came to me. But all I could think was
I deserve this. You deserve this. You miserable brat. You piece of shit. Worthless slut. Whore. W h o r e. You bitch. You deserve this, what’s happening to you. Yeah, cry, bitch. Cry more. I dare you. Keep going, don’t stop, keep going, fuck don’t stop don’t stop fuck
Leave one’s body to look down upon it in disgust. This, also, I have always known. That is why my BMI is now 18.6.
I got a sewing needle from the assortment of miscellaneous objects in my grandmother’s wedding jewelry box. It stands, propped open, burnt and tired from its 1960 induction into the Mehta family, and the mirror on its face stares back at anyone who looks into it. Or maybe just at me. On the mirror sits a printed photograph of me and a dead redheaded girl standing in the downtown square in December. Snow falls around us, the lights shine red and blue on the slushed streets, dark Ubers blur past the mahogany stone of the square. We are grinning, mid-speaking. We are fifteen and loving it. Whenever I am in a state I stare at us. Hard. I try to make eye contact. But every time, the only person I can really look at is myself, tear-strewn, in the mirror.
I picked up the sewing needle. Grabbed the neon-green Bic lighter I told mommy was just for candles. I do love scented candles. I go crouch by the lamp that brings joy into the room. I used to have a space heater because I was always cold; printed on the top was the company name
Sunbeam
I have written lots about Sunbeam. I love Sunbeam. Sunbeam makes me feel good. So does my lamp. I want to have a smiling sun tattooed on my back. I sit on the side of my bed, my bare feet grazing the carpeted floor next to my bedside table. I stretch my arm out under the lamp.
Karma karma karma karma karma karma karma
This is what you deserve – you always get what you deserve – you are to blame for all of it
I had a mind to write “KARMA” in burn lines on my forearm. I had already done so, months prior, but just lines, no words. Just burn lines, in a row on my inner wrist, periodically. I was building up to a tally of five. I’ve only ever made it to four.
I didn’t think it through. I didn’t realize that the spot I chose would be obvious to those close to me for years to come. I didn’t realize that short sleeves would be a problem. I didn’t know. I’m sorry I didn’t know.
I sparked the lighter and held the sewing needle in the flame for a couple of seconds. Mesmerized. Wanted to make sure it was hot enough. Flames are hot, if you didn’t know.
I removed the needle from the lighter and positioned it above my arm, my palm facing upwards slightly closed, holding the lamp-light. Chipped black nails from October. My skin is so pale in the fall; so thin, so papery. Burnable, feeble, weak.
I pressed the needle into my arm, horizontal, the first line of the letter K. It hurt so bad. I pressed it down for as long as I could, eyes squeezed shut. I removed it. Opened my eyes. A dark red line appeared on the beige of my forearm. I stared at it. My baby, my child, my creation. Hello.
I wrote K A. Two angular letters is six lines. Is six important? Seven is the devil’s number. I am still a girl.
After a couple of minutes I laid back down in my bed. I watched my arm. Every time I looked away and returned it would be slightly more raised; I ran my fingers over the burns. The texture was so smooth, so soft despite the rising blood underneath. I went to sleep like that. Fingers over K A. Everything is K A. I went to bed looking forward to seeing K A in the morning.
Over the next few weeks it stayed red, and then scabbed, and then slowly I picked the scab off to reveal pale pink, burnt off skin. At work I had to wear short sleeves, skirts and dresses; I put a bandaid over K A. A 30-year-old bartender asked me what happened; more people noticed than I would’ve liked. I said,
Oh, got a burn. Oh, yeah? How?
It might’ve been wise to say hair straighter. I have always been smart, but never wise.
It’s so grandma-y. What’s that mean? Just, a grandma way to get a burn. Try me. I burnt it on a kettle making tea.
He laughed goodnaturedly. I can’t remember his name. I had learned recently that he was fucking a server named Bree, and one time in doggy, he had stopped to hit his Juul. Everyone knew. Everyone. When they stopped fucking Bree quit and never came back. She was so pretty. He left me alone, went back to the bar.
Over the next few months the pink faded to a pale white, and then a light beige, and then light brown. K A would never be covered up with concealer; there were just too many colors to adequately disguise, and the concealer I use for my face is too light for the rest of my body. When I look closely at K A I can’t even see the difference in skin tone, between the marred and the unmarred. When I look from far away, from the average distance of arm to eye, K A glares at me, obvious and alarming. K A looks at me and says, karma, baby, karma, honey, karma, sweetie pie. Karma. K A.
In time no one has noticed K A. I do well disgusing K A. I turn my arm unnaturally when reaching for things in sleeveless shirts, in a way that only I will notice is abnormal. Daisy noticed K A, after we had lived together for a couple of months. It is hard to hide things from people you live with; mothers, sisters, brothers, selves.
On vacation in the Dominican Republic, in March of 2022, I was greeting my mother at the beach, where she sat in a beach chair, reading on her red iPad mini, sunglasses and floppy hat on her girly curly hair. She has dark eyes, my mother. My brother and I, our eyes are a lighter brown, a visible brown. Hers, from any distance other than cheek-kissing distance, are black.
I reached for something. She grabbed my arm. I knew it.
What’s this? Nothing.
I tried to take my arm away. Panic. What was it with this fucking trip. She gripped my arm harder, too hard, pulled it back. I supposed she can grab my arm as hard as she wants to. It came from her body. It was made of her flesh. The flesh belongs to her; I’d burnt and marred what belonged to her. I, too, would be upset.
This. Here. (she touched K A. No one is allowed to touch K A, feel the ridges, but me.) What is this? Iya? (I stared at her.) Iya? Mom. It’s nothing. (she stared at it in silence; I tried to pull away and again she restricted me) It’s something. Is this... (whispered) cuts? No. Burns. Burns? Iya... why?
She sounded like she was about to cry. I felt bad. And annoyed. K A belongs to me and me alone. It’s not that big of a fucking deal. Stop overreacting. Don’t you fucking dare cry.
I wanted a tattoo. A... tattoo? Yeah. Why couldn’t you... just wait and get a tattoo? I wanted one immediately. Bitiya. What? A tattoo? Yeah. Why... burn yourself? (beat) Did it hurt? (I shrugged) A little. (beat) Iya... why? Why would you do this to yourself? Tattoo.
And so the conversation went. It ended with her sitting there, dejected, on the beach chair, her feet in the sand. When she is about to cry, she looks pitiful. Weak. She is reduced to a little girl. Barrettes or not. She is my daughter and I am hers.
I stared at my toes in the sand. I thought about how much I love feeling sand on my toes. I tried to distract myself from the potentially destructive nature of this conversation, the fact that it could end my habits and ruin my routine and take away from me the way that I like to do things, the way that I like to treat myself. I was afraid that she would tell me it was wrong. I knew it was wrong, I knew K A wasn’t normal. But in my way, it was so right. It was meant to be. If I am alive, I want it to be in my way.
The conversation ended when Kallous and Zayn arrived. Little brothers. Tension suckers. Babies. I have never known love like the love I feel for my little brother. If he dies, I will die. If I have a son, his name will be Kallous. I have never known this love and friendship. I imagine the next closest thing is to be a mother.
She never mentioned the encounter again.
It has been more than a year, and now, usually, I live away from her, in New York City. She does not know that I am sick. She can’t bring herself to believe it. Not hers, not her flesh. Not the child of her blood and tears. Not the product of her belly, of her volition. Anything but that.
When I started taking meds, I was afraid of what it would mean to her. My therapist told me that I’m an adult, I have the right to choose what I disclose to my mother about my health. I realized that yes, I had that power. In time, I embraced this. It’s now my power to keep secrets. Secrets about myself belong to me. My mother will only know what I disclose to her. K A and I are far away, inaccessible, undiscoverable from her watching black eyes.
I told her on the phone a week or two ago that I have a therapist now. She didn’t know what to say. Something like
Oh — and he — or she — helps you — deal with things? Yes — I guess
Yes I’m helped to deal with things. But never has there been, and perhaps never will there be, a question as to my wellness. The health of my brain. Of course, if she asked, my answer would be a lie. But the problem lives in the unasked question rather than the answer.
I wonder, sometimes, if I have any problems at all. Any negative feelings, any troubling emotions, any confused ideas. Or if I just think that I do. If I just think of ways that I could be worse off, and project them onto myself until I believe in them wholeheartedly.
I had a doctor’s appointment today. It is 2023. I have a new sickness. A name I can’t bring myself to give it. I know it. I can’t name it or look it in the face in fear of turning it on its head. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say. I am beautiful now. It is so glorious to be ill.
Today I sat on a hospital gurney-chair in a pale blue gown that tied in the front. Exposing my neon green, lacy thong. Braless. Pointing nipples poking through the thin material, one out the open gown-front where the tie couldn’t reach. I did a urine sample in the bathroom. In the enclosed room I sat on the edge of the chair, socked-toes dangling. Did a blind weigh but once the nurse left the room I weighed myself anyway and saw the number. They should really prepare better for people like me. We’re tricky all the way through. Tricky girls live here. I’ve never had my head reach my body like it has now. K A.
I think I got it all wrong