You know my name is Mis’. Spelled backwards, of course, but I’ve never been much of a lady. My whole life people have been telling me that. Although, I do have the mysterious way of calling others MR and MRS, so and so. Followed closely by the word shithead or fuck tard, in my head, of course. “Oh good day, Mr. Johnson”. Shithead. In fact, my mom used to think my name really stood for Mysterious. Impossible. Shit. That’s why I named you Sim honey. You’re my backwards, mysterious, impossible, shit, child. I know despite herself, she loves me very much. More than I probably deserve. When I was to, eventually, lose my mind, she fought hard to bring me home. Figuratively and physically. See, I didn’t really lose my mind, more like lost my direction and became like a little birdy lost in migration. But you know what, it was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me. Looking back of course. I can say these things now with a spirit of leather, with a strength that took me years to relate to. But right now I want you to feel, just as I felt then. Naïve. Knowing absolutely nothing.
What can I say, I was M.I.S. Sim. Shithead, extraordinaire. And see, I did the most backwards, impossible, shitty, thing a girl could do at eighteen. I reckoned, I had no home. So I gave it the good ole ‘Screw it’. I reckoned I could make a home outta being lost, with jack shit to lose, and a whole lotta jack shit to lean on, but all that misdirection. And that’s just who I was honey. A jack shit, knowing nothing. Penniless and broke; spiritually more than anything, and honest to earnest, more alone than I knew how to face then. See, I didn’t really know a damn thing about who I was. More importantly, I didn’t know how to be who I was. I can’t even tell you that I had dreams then, because I sure didn’t. Nor can I tell you that this was a young shit phase that I escaped early. Sure didn’t.
So, I did the second most backwards, impossible, shitty thing a girl could do. I met a crazy boy. Crazy in complementary ways.
His name was Ramin. I sort of envisioned this boy having an exotic name when I first laid eyes on him. He had dark brown eyes and hair the color of chocolate. I always figured maybe that was the reason I loved dark haired brooding bastards so much, they reminded me of chocolate. After all these years, I still haven’t figured out if it’s bad for me. The chocolate, and the brooding bastards.
When I, eventually, had the pleasure of touching his skin, I told him it felt just like butternut squash. Softer than any other boy I would ever touch, supple and yellow, just like a squash. Usually this would be a thing a boy gets on telling a girl, but no, not me. I was backwards and different than all the rest. That’s the first lie I’ve been telling myself all of these damn years; that I was different than all the rest.
Now I’m not going to sit here and say that we met romantically at a Grey Hound bus station or anything cheesy like that. No, my glorious ticket to a better life didn’t get swept away by a gust of train farts, until this handsome age appropriate exotic hunk, swept into save the day. I wasn’t an idealistic fuck tard. Maybe a fuck tard, but not an idealistic one. Despite being stupid, I’ve always been quite pragmatic.
No, we met at the inner city psychiatrist. Mom had noticed I’d been feeling…a little blue and “unnaturally full of myself”. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I started popping pimples obsessively, or maybe the fact that I used every excuse I could get my hands on to steal cigarettes and then lie convincingly about the evidence. “ Mom I was not smoking. Honest”. “You lying little shit”, she’d say. Even when she called me a shit or a little bitch, she said it with love. It could have also been the time I ran away from home for a weekend that concerned her too. Well, not really. I went to see my sister at OU. The only problem was I didn’t get permission first. Well come to think of it, I didn’t ask at all.
Or maybe it was the fact that I developed a routine. 3 stroke lines of thick black eye liner on each eye in the morning, followed by 10 upwards and downwards strokes of mascara, which I would methodically count outside her bedroom door at exactly 7:47 in the morning, for the added mystery of course. 1.2.3.4… like a morning wake up call.Rise and shine, shithead. And then, it was, 2.5 scoops of turbinaded sugar and precisely 1 carefully measured tablespoon of organic half & half, taken down with 1 chapter of Ken Kesey’s classic, ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ at precisely 4:05 in the evening, and finally 15 minutes and 30 seconds of devoted pimple poppin’ before bed.
Sim, honey, has the OCD gotten hold of you? Or are you just being a mysterious shit?
“Maybe you’re just trying to read me too hard ma, I retorted.” Delicately turning the pages of my book and saying aloud, “ It was the truth, even if it never happened”. “Interesting. Hmp. Interesting indeed.” Oh that’s another thing…I started repeating my words. Repeating them for the added mystery. Maybe I LIKE being mysterious, fuck tard. Okay the last thing didn’t actually get said, but my mom knew the contents of my head. Secretly, I think she was a die hard hypochondriac. I pointed this out one day, and that’s when my ass got taken to the ‘ward’. Funny how pointing out the crazy in others makes you the crazy one….
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