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MOTION SICKNESS — PHOEBE BRIDGERS
"i wanna know what would happen / if i surrender to the sound"
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THREE: I HATE EVERYONE
Why am I so ugly? If God is real, then why on Earth did he make me look and feel this way? Surely the mental illness and the hatred for humankind was enough. Clearly, if God is real, then he's playing some kind of sick joke on me. Hey, God. It's me. You can stop now.
It's the short break between lessons where I find myself locked away in the bathroom and washing my face in the sink full of somebody's snotty tissues. I take a look in the mirror on the off chance that anything less than ugly looks back at me, and without a moment's hesitation I have to look away. Unwelcome acne invades every part of my face. My nose is too big. My teeth have gaps and it's horrid. They're stained with yellow no matter how much I scrub at them. I think I'm destined to have yellow teeth for the rest of my life and a nose that doesn't fit my face.
My siblings got all the good looks, while I took the brains. That's my only redeeming quality—I know my way around a maths equation or an English assignment, how exciting. While my siblings were born with dark, glossy brown hair, shining smiles, and the gift of the gab, I pale in comparison. I'm a horrible, terrible monster. Or maybe I'm not, and we're all different, and that's okay. My hair is a dirty blonde, the colour fading into a mousy blondish-brown the more stressed I get; apparently a very normal occurrence for somebody with my frame of mind.
I have to constantly remind my mother that she should've stopped at my brother, then she would have been free from a lot of grief. I don't want to make my family worry about me anymore, I just want to make them proud. Will I ever? I've failed so much, yet I'm still standing and trying my hardest.
I want to achieve something. I need to achieve something. If only I could hold on for a little while longer.
I want to wear makeup but I wouldn't even know where to start—what the hell is concealer? I look and feel ugly. I scratch away at my face, hoping for some kind of improvement, but it only gets worse. For once in my life, I long to be like every other girl my age: normal.
I hate me. I hate you. I hate everyone. It's always going to be like this and I am never going to get better. I might as well give up now, how will I ever look good enough to be somebody's girlfriend? God, I hate that word. I don't want to be somebody's anything.
No one can change me. I can't sleep at night. I don't like food. I'm ugly. I want to die. Life is so difficult. I've got nothing to live for anymore and, God, I just want something to live for.
Before I can self-deprecate anymore, the door to one of the cubicles swings open and, oh no—have I been muttering to myself like a lunatic this whole time?
The girl with raven-coloured hair turns on the tap next to me. "Are you OK?" she mutters as she takes a look at me, her eyes almost in line with mine, her face contorted as if she's just witnessed me having a breakdown—oh, wait, she has! "Do you need me to take you to the nurse?" she asks, the sarcasm incredibly evident considering there isn't a nurse here.
"I'm fine—" she cuts me off, sniggering to herself while she washes her hands.
"Sorry, forgot you hate everyone. Better dash." I look at her, with a face so familiar that I'm certain I saw her trawling the Asda aisles the other day. She has a face you'd struggle to forget; a scar on her forehead that's too neat and straight for you to make a Harry Potter joke, eyes almost as dark as her hair, and freckles speckled sparingly across the bridge of her nose.
Everybody I've bumped into today has given me Deja Vu. It's too early for this.