I’m beginning to think I was custom engineered by Jesus/Allah/Christopher Walken as punishment for men. Or punishment for myself. Or punishment for something. Or maybe we won’t go creationist on this one, because I believe in fossils and Bill Nye. Maybe I am a cluster of seriously shitty genetics. Or maybe Greek/Roman myths are real. If my Mom had her choice she would have named me Cassandra, after Mama Cass, who she loved, and who did not die choking on a ham sandwich, but died a tragic death nonetheless. I always identified more with Cassandra, the mythological figure who could foresee the future but was never believed. Either way that’s got to have left a negative imprint, although my Dad wanted to name me Debbie so maybe the larger crisis was avoided.

I have scrawny little legs on an otherwise average sized body. Kind of like a bipedal deer. I have emotional problems which have so far confounded 4 psychiatrists, including one who was like “hold on, I gotta write this shit down.” He looked like a Wes Anderson character and constantly made what I thought were inappropriate jokes but he would then glare at me when I laughed. He prescribed me Ambien, for my insomnia, then said “be careful with this, we don’t wanna have you goin’ down like Whitney Houston.” I chuckled, and then he looked me straight in the eye and said “it’s not funny lots of people die that way.”

I’m lactose intolerant. I’m gluten intolerant. I probably have irritable bowel syndrome. I get an insatiable urge to hit people while drunk. I’m smart but in the useless way where I question everything and enjoy nothing. I have Daddy issues. I have Mommy issues. I’m terrible at small talk. I have a bitch face and a loud mouth which do not go well with being painfully shy. I have the combination of self-loathing and the desperate need to be liked that seems to be a prerequisite for anyone who wants to be an artist. The possibility of dying alone arises every once and a while, but I think my deeper fear is that one day someone will love me despite all the shit mentioned above. Because then it will be reckoning day. Then I’ll have to figure out if I’m capable of feeling loved.

And I’m really scared I’ll feel nothing