1. When I was in kindergarten, I got my haircut from a dog groomer—and I loved it. My grandmother took me to her friend who ran a dog spa out of her house. My mother was appalled, but I liked how my brown layers were choppy and different than when they lay tangled against my back at night. I ran around laughing in our dusty backyard in Eastern Oregon with my hair jutting out at different angles and in my cousin Ben’s old clothes, before she was Amber.
In my National Geographic Kids t-shirt with a rubbery magnifying glass placing a spotlight on ants and scorpions, in my tan cargo pants that had pockets filled with dirt, ladybugs, and cool rocks, I felt at home.
2. “You have hair. Down there,” my friend squealed at me, pointing where I had just pulled my one-piece swimsuit over my crotch.
“No, I don’t,” I said. I squirmed my shoulders and arms through the straps before she had the chance to see I had grown breast buds, too. But I knew that I had, and that my face which used to be smooth and pink was breaking out with acne.
“You do. And so does Sarah–” she nodded to the tall blonde girl we had shared a classroom with since the first grade.
My eyes glanced across the locker room before I blushed and turned away.
3. My first kiss was with a girl. It made me think I was a sinner. Her hair was red, like the knuckles on her fingers against the pale white skin of her hands. She kept her hands at her sides and let our lips be the only things that touched. My first kiss with a boy was when I was 14 years old. It made me think I was a lesbian. His hair was in brown curls that reminded me of a teddy bear my stepdad gave me as a child. His hands were always on me, squeezing and tugging as if he could pull the pleasure out of my body like a piece of warm taffy.
4. I was thirteen when I pulled down my pants one morning and saw the damning evidence of my adolescence. I shoved the soiled underwear to the bottom of the trash bin and made a pillow of toilet paper to cushion a new pair. It felt like the uterus that I barely acknowledged existed within me was doling out a new punishment.
“You’re a woman now!” My mother said when I pulled her into the bathroom. I started crying.
“How the hell can you be old enough to have babies and still be acting like one?” my first stepdad asked when he walked into our conversation.
5. A few weeks after my first period, he started to talk to me about sex. I didn’t know anything about it. He would down half a bottle of Fireball and call me to the porch for him to smoke—and to get me away from my mother.
“I just want you to get on the pill so you can experience raw sex. Without a condom,” He said, and I buried my face into the blanket I was sitting on. I knew even with my eyes covered that his own were crawling my body, gauging my reaction.
“I don’t like anyone like that right now. I don’t even have a boyfriend.” My voice was muffled. My lungs felt clenched in my chest like I couldn’t pull in a full breath.
“I fuckin’ knew you would be a dyke. Is this because of Sarah?”
“No!”
“But what would you do if she tried to kiss you?”
6. By the time I was 14, his abuse had become more aggressive. I started wearing baggy sweatshirts to hide my doughy belly and small breasts. Otherwise, he would take an impact drill and push it into the skin on my stomach until it left an angry red and blue bruise. Or he would follow me into my bed at night once his breath was thick enough to drown me in his cigarettes and whiskey.
7. My mom soon divorced him and we escaped into the arms of a second stepdad. I was thrown into a house of seven with five new siblings. Even in the absence of my previous father figure, I punished myself in the shower by dragging long streaks of red across my legs that flowed from my thighs to my ankles. When those lines scabbed over, I picked at the healing skin until they bled anew.
I started running when I was 16, usually wearing an old Harley t-shirt and black spandex. One morning my sister, who was in 7th grade at the time, was up at the same time as me.
“What are those?” She asked. She ran two small fingers over my leg.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it.” I pulled the fabric of my shorts down over the scars, pushing her hand away.
“It’s okay, I won’t tell.” She did tell. It was months before I was able to shower with razors in the bathroom again, and longer for my bedroom door to be replaced on its hinges.
8. As an adult, I’ve been able to keep the razor moving in its intended direction, shaving off the hair where I’ve been told to since I was in the fourth grade, but his voice in my head still echoes at night when the house is quiet. I still bind my chest and cringe when someone says, “She’s right over there.” But, I’m learning to use my own voice and accept my heart in the body it resides in.
JGE
Biography: JGE is a non-binary, bisexual writer. They’ve been a contributor and editor of PRISM before and are happy to have the chance to submit during their senior year. They are graduating this spring with a Bachelor of Creative Writing. They’ve also been published in the literary journals Maudlin House, Grande Dame Literary, and JakeTheMag. They have been a consultant at the OSU Writing Center and the secretary of the Creative Writing Society here on campus.
Artist Statement: I’m an interdisciplinary writer and dabble in fiber arts. I’m a poet who pulls words like treasures out of a wet pocket after a day on the beach and lays them on the kitchen table, still coated in sand to piece together the worlds I’ve found. I’m a creative nonfiction writer who sees my life in dictionary excerpts, abandoned grocery lists, and occasionally on the page of an essay. I’m a fiction writer who discovers truth in my fantastical lies when I’m not searching for it. Maybe more when I am avoiding it. Most of all, I am a writer.
Published in Volume 144, Storyteller!
