poetinside

I once stole prizes from the charity lucky dip at the St. Michael’s School Fair by bumping into the tables until the lollipops fell to the floor where I could gather them greedily in my hands and sneak them into my pockets. I stole fundraising candy.

I uninvited one of my closest friends to my eighth birthday party because she peed herself at school the week before and I no longer wanted to be associated with her. I hurt someone I loved.

My friend Amanda and I once made perverted phone calls to a random number we found in the phone book pretending to be prostitutes. We left pornographic messages on the answering machine. The family had caller ID and phoned back to complain to my parents. I told them Amanda made me do it even though it was really my idea. My parents wouldn’t let me hang out with her again after that. I ruined someone’s good name to save my own skin.

At catholic school I used to invent sins for my classmates to share in confession when they couldn’t think of anything to say. I would write them on little slips of paper  and hand them out in chapel mass. I dealt in contraband sins.

So when I told you that I didn’t do anything to deserve this, as you sat there, stoic and decided with my heart in your hands, I lied.

I deserve to be left again and again.