December 10, 2015.
My last day on Earth.
From the moment I was capable of proper self-reflection, I knew there was too much of me. I filled more space than any person should. I would study the area around myself and imagine lines drawn between my body and the objects nearby. The lines were too short. Stout, vulgar lines barely spanning the interstices I used to prove I wasn’t sharing mass with the walls and furniture.
A plan bloomed within me and seeded the foundation of my identity. As I was shuffled from foster home to foster home, I began to restrict the amount of food I consumed. The general lack of care for my wellbeing, which I’m certain would have devastated the psyche of other adolescents, was my greatest advantage. With each refused meal, the lines separating me from the mass of the world grew longer. I bathed in the reinforcing glow of success.
As I got older, those around me would pay no attention to the scrapes on my index and middle fingers. They’d pay no attention to my hair, which fell out in clumps of rotting, mousy gossamer. Even if they noticed – even if they cared – they’d be disgusted. They weren’t on a level which would allow them understand the purpose of my journey.
Perhaps if they watched as I laid awake and traced the protrusions of my hip bones, ribs, and clavicles; watched, every night, for thousands of nights, as my fingers traced and I fantasized about valleys eroding into canyons and hillocks giving way to crags, they would see a girl who is in control. Through my rituals, they’d learn the very meaning of control. Of sacred, ruthless asceticism. Of metamorphosis.
Tonight, I can stand in the middle of the room and see lines floating through the space between myself and everything around me. They’re longer than they’ve ever been. In moments, lines of space itself will be my corporeal legacy. Imagine a girl who, through abnegation and sacrifice, earned her place in the vast heavens. A girl with a glowing star marking each joint where bone once met bone. Civilizations would look upon her and trace the spaces between her stars with their own perfect lines. And then they would see my shape. No curves. Just angles; only angles.
For the first time in a decade, I’m feeling nostalgia for the days of ignorant joy before I knew my purpose. Days of innocent fantasies and childhood hedonism. Days cut short when I watched my family die; a nine year old girl left to stare at the drunken truck driver who crushed her mother, father, and brother against a wall. A nine year old girl with no control over life and death.
I’ve changed since then. I’m ready to show the full power of my control. I control my hands as they open the bottle of pills. I control my gag reflex as I swallow every last one. I control my throat as it transports white wine down to my stomach to mix with the pills. I control my fingers as I type my last words to be read by a world unable to see the value of sacrifice. It’s time for them to learn.
Watch, tonight, as the icy pitch of space brightens from the introduction of new stars. Watch, together, as the seeds of my effort and patience bear celestial fruit. The line separating life and death has always dictated my body’s geometry. Now I’m crossing that line. My new identity will be points of radiant light with nothing but perfect emptiness in between. But I will be remembered. Anyone who wants to see the girl who dies tonight needs only to connect the dots.
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Well that was depressing