My White and Purple Skin

Bridgett Briggs

Scratch scratch. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop scratching at my skin. The skin that was holding everything inside of me. Pick pick, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. The amount of shame that I had in me, I had to get it off. I needed to wash it down the drain so it wouldn’t come back up like the itsy bitsy spider. Nothing made me more shameful than I was then. Click click, the pen I held was on its last leg. Walking out, I’m cryin’ in a coop. I can’t let it go, I wouldn’t let it go. Staring in the mirror, I couldn’t even recognize myself. Pasty white face, it’s all I ever wanted. I wanted to be as white as Snow White. But my arms, my arms are still something I’m ashamed of. Scar after scar, layer after layer, it never ends. I pull up my sleeves and just stare at my arms. My arms that were once a pastel purple are now full of white, jagged scars. It looks like a used chalkboard that teachers write on. Pushing the sleeves down, my scars hidden. Like the curtain that would close after the last act on stage. Clomp clomp, my shoes echoed down the empty hallway. I can’t take this anymore. Every step feels like an earthquake, an earthquake upon the soft soil that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is on. As if I was the cause of that. Storming out of what is supposed to be a safe place is now in the back of my mind. My mind blank – blank like a dead corpse. What used to be a place I call home is now gone. Only my room feels like home. Slamming the door, it felt like I was finally able to breathe. Being outside my room, it feels like I’m in a closed, compound space that shrinks slower and slower. I felt as if I was living Four’s fear in Divergent. It did feel that I was divergent. Just staring at the makeup wipes, it made me feel freer. Wiping the makeup off, I could finally see myself. My pastel purple skin finally came to view in the mirror. Only a mirror could speak the truth. I had my own enchanted mirror that the Evil Queen had in Snow White, except this wasn’t one used for evil. It showed me the good that I have in my own skin. I finally took my mask off, the mask that kept me hidden from the world. I felt free. Free from the expectations and stereotypes that I have to live by; although, I will soon be trapped after taking a step out of this room. My sanctuary. The type of sanctuary Esmeralda got in the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame. I never want to be tied down like Queen Elinor was in Brave when she became a bear. I never will be, because I have the same spring in my step as I once did as a child.