Work for It

by Talia Hibbert

Men, in case anyone on earth has somehow failed to notice, are pigs. I can say this with supreme confidence, since I was a man before I was E.T.

None of them can learn about the problems I’ve been having, because when everyone around you is living out their dreams, burdening them with your bullshit is simply a crime.

All you can ever be is yourself, so try not to second-guess it.

I mean, for Christ’s sake, did he have to insult me with Scrabble words? Couldn’t he have just called me a tosser?

“Is a lie a thing we say,” I ask, “or a thing we let people believe?”

At times like this, the truth about me is as unavoidable as rain in England: I’m so difficult to care for that the people I’ve lived with all my life still hold me at a distance, but they fall all over this outsider with ease.

We’ll never know how big we could grow if we stunt ourselves. People are like plants. You gotta give us what we need, cross your fingers, and see what happens.

He’s burning me down to the bone. They’ll find the scar of him on my remains.

He is shining like the sun, and I think… I think he might be handsome. Oh, God, yes, he is. Without any warning at all, he is.

“Mum used to tell me fear will stunt you. Like growing a sunflower inside a cupboard. So I try to take my sunflower outside, even when it kills me.”

My brain tries to tell me I’m an idiot. I tell it we don’t think things like that anymore, and if it’s not going to be a positive part of the team, it can piss off.

I’ve been thinking, lately, that I’d like to stop hating myself forever. I would like to try, anyway. But you know what they say: baby steps.

Sometimes I’m so angry with him. How dare he make me feel like he adores me?

The good news is that I am feeling far more confident in my ability to stop hating myself: all I have to do, it seems, is let go of everything my parents ever taught me. I know. Likely impossible, but I’m pleased to have a goal.