Sickly Innocent

We had to watch a movie today, for seniors. They told us this time was "the deadly hundred days," warning us of the reckless, euphoric toasts that ravage innocence fully if it hasn't been done already. To be honest, it just made me want to close my door to the world and drink to the sadness of it. Which is what I did.

My boyfriend, my brother and I were harassed while waiting for my mother to pick us up. A pitiful "meathead," as M calls him, was begging for any excuse to fight. He pushed him, threatening to break his jaw, and called me a cunt when I said he needed anger management. My brother kept saying that he would've beaten him up; his idiotic naivety was embarrassing.

M called his friend, a former drug dealer but the sweetest kid I've ever met. He's got rep though, and muscle, and he convinced the meathead to stop bothering us. A sudden crash into the harshest dark corners of the world, for me. A place where strangers threaten to break your bones, and stature is measured by bloody memories. My hands shook with fear, despite myself.

And here I was, a well-groomed sheltered girl living on the upside of town. Prepared to counter snobs and gossip girls and rich douchebags, but not this--not this sheer brutality. Not shady streets and black-eyed girls, not strung-out addicts and ravenous gangs of men. I don't know if I ever will be.

So isn't it swell then, that I'm going to a school of the primped and preened elite? People with high-minded ideas and sophisticated tastes, who buy expensive vintage clothes and shop organic, attend charity events and discuss politics over a bottle of chardonnay?

It's civilized to the point of being superficial, fake and contrived. Why do I feel such rage and shame to admit that this world is the only place I could ever belong?

I'm not broken in the way that counts. Abuse, neglect, poverty, broken homes. I can't say I know how it feels.

Instead I have the maladies of perfection. Masquerades teach you to hide behind a smile and dance as if everyone was watching. Asking, begging the masses to look on with jealous eyes. I know it's a malady that everyone wants--and in so, so many ways I should be grateful.

But even so, the desperate yearnings of escape, which seem to drive all human vices, are in essence
one and the same.