It wasn’t so long ago
that a close friend of mine
rolled up my sleeve
to count the freckles on my arm,
but gave up shortly after.
“I can’t tell which ones are freckles
and which ones are scars,” she told me.
I have keratosis pilaris.
It is a common skin condition
often known as “chicken skin.”
Put simply, my arms are covered in small red bumps
that often look like pimples.
It wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t know this,
when, in seventh grade, my cousin grabbed my arm,
held it up for all to see, and yelled,
“Look! Her arm is covered in zits!”
It wasn’t so long ago that I began to pick,
as though by peeling off my flesh
I might find a me I liked better underneath.
It wasn’t so long ago that I was asked to leave class
to go to the bathroom and wash off the blood
I had drawn from my arms.
Now, nearly ten years later,
I find myself wondering
if that teacher would have said the same
if I had used razor blades instead of fingernails.
It wasn’t so long ago
that I considered dropping out of high school
two weeks before graduation
because it would be easier than explaining
my emotional breakdowns.
Because it would be easier
than expressing myself.
Since when is it easier
to cut out our hearts
than open our mouths?
It wasn’t so long ago
that I finally found the courage to say
“I’m gay,
my mother degrades me,
and I want to die,”
and the first reply was,
“Shame on you for airing your family’s
dirty laundry.”
They said I was just being a drama queen,
but the bottle of pills I swallowed two years later
might think differently.
If I am being a drama queen,
let today be my coronation.
I will take my subjects,
and we will sing in the streets.
There will be a song for every time
we’ve been told to
“suck it up” or “get over it.”
We will wear these holes in our chests
like crown jewels
until the world chooses to acknowledge
that depression is a disease.
Yeah, maybe I’m being a drama queen.
If so, let today be a parade in my honor.
I will stand tall and take my shame
and spit it back in your face.
I will not be afraid to feel pain
just because you don’t want to dirty your hands in it;
I will make mud pies for you.
And while you pray for my immortal soul,
I will worry for your cold, black heart
that doesn’t even have room for someone as tiny,
broken, and insignificant as me.
Let this poem be my middle finger
to the guilters and the haters.
I am done being ashamed
of the scars that cover my arms,
so instead of picking at scabs,
I’m going to try
picking up all these broken pieces of us,
picking out which color I will paint
the ample room inside my own heart,
picking which stars I will go to
once I’m an astronaut,
because I know
I can fly.
Kirsten Uhde is a queer writer and amateur spoken word poet living in Farmington, Maine. She writes poetry to share her experiences with learning her sexuality and struggling to express herself and to raise awareness about depression and mental illness. When she isn’t writing poetry, she works nights and coaches a high school forensic speech team. You can find more of her poetry at chartreusepoetry.tumblr.com.