Writing to Save Yourself

by Soap
April 6, 2014

Saturday night, I got in a fight with my parents. The screaming match was more than I could handle
and memories memories memories were pushing to the forefront of my eyelids. I slipped into my
room and quickly realized the futility of tears, so I dug under the pile of clothes that had become a
carpet of their own. And I found my wallet. And I left.

I still don't know why I took my wallet.

True to form, they hide the car keys before I had a chance to take them. I walked for a directionless
hour along SR-92 heading west. And I was sobbing walking along the curb. Not one car stopped. Not
even the ones screaming music from inside the rolled up windows. I laughed. Why did I think cars
would stop for a teenager walking alone in the dark? I'm not celebrity.

My shirt was thin, and my hands were cold. And I called but you didn't answer. You didn't call back.
You were probably making out with your girlfriend. I just wanted to ask if you could drop off a
sweatshirt, preferably with some pockets. Or ask if you could help me find a way to sneak into the
church because I hate asking to spend the night.

The headlights were starting to make me self-conscious.

And i thought about how I should have taken a shower before I started this pilgrimage because my
hair was sticking up weird.
I laughed because teenagers think they are significant.
But that only made me cry harder.

And I know you can't freeze to death in forty degree weather. But if the grass is wet, and your
sleeves are short, you just might.

And I know that you will never know what it is like to have to police called to your own house to
assess property damage from punching a hole in your own wall.

Or what it is like to have the police call your cell phone.

And I know, I know. The breakthrough is finding about that connection that's more than brushing
fingertips. The breakthrough is reading a raw, bitter post about love when you're feeling raw and bitter
yourself. That breakthrough is writing about your sloppy first kiss and getting ten comments about
your peers' sloppy first kisses. Writing about LDS general conference that I did not watch. Writing
about praying and disappointing two sets of parents.

But sometimes writing is about talking to the computer screen so you don't punch another hole in the
wall.

See I want to punch another hole in the wall, but I wrote this instead. Now I'm jogging instead of
sprinting. Now my fingers are moving a little faster than when they look for channels on the telly.
Now my breaths are a little less jagged and sharp. The music of my heartbeat is a little more soft
and a little more even. Like the intro of a ballad.

I didn't write this for you. I wrote this for my heart. She needed a little breathing room and space to
talk.