Teach Me A Lesson

I take too long in the shower, I guess, and I think my grandmother thinks it’s because I’m getting off. Actually it’s not fun at all, getting lost in the overstimulation of water and steam, forgetting where I’ve put the soap or what I was just washing, fingers aching because they don’t know how much pressure to use when shampoo-ing, slicing my thumb open when I try to hurry up because I’m being scolded through the door. It doesn’t matter; she wants to teach me a lesson about wasting water.

Teach me a lesson.

I’ve heard that before.

It’s my brother, snarling “she has to learn” while I’m crying on the floor.

It’s my dad, in the car, (in the backseat) over the phone, at the bank, whatever it takes, consistency.

It’s my sister, grabbing my signing hands to hold them still, “stop when I tell you to stop, it’s common courtesy.” (Though, of course, should I tell her to stop touching me, give me space, stop making fun of me, stop saying that, she is under no obligation.) “I want to hear your words. No. Not those words.”

Teach me a lesson.

It wasn’t said out loud, but I heard it every day from the kids in my AP classes, eyes sliding over and past me. “What’s the retard doing here?” The face the teacher makes is apologetic. It’s not for me.

Teach me a lesson.

My friends never hung out with me outside the concrete walls of our school, but they did like making me practice the things I was worst at. Look me in the eyes, hold still, let me hug you. Keep that up and I’ll poke you. It’s your reaction, Julia, that’s why we do it, Don’t talk about that. The hell is wrong with you. Just be a person. Don’t think, just be natural, be yourself. Yeah, you’ll want to lie about that. There are no rules. We’re trying to help. You’re doing it wrong.

Teach me a lesson.

I want to teach you a lesson.

I want to teach you about the boys in Honors English and the smug pride they took in calling me retarded because “hey, it means slow. You are slow. It’s true. You can’t get mad at us for telling the truth.” I want to teach you about being harassed by airport security because I crawl through the checkpoints, my hands shaking and my mind spinning, concentrating on one step at a time. I want to be there when I snap “Sorry, I can’t go any faster, I’m retarded,” and I want you to be my heart when it stops beating.

I want to teach you a lesson about never wanting to sleep with someone because they’ll see the drool on your pillow—and everyone drools, true, but everyone has a horror of drool because that’s what the retards do, and most people don’t have to worry about being mistaken for a waste of space whereas I wait patiently for the inevitable moment when my lover, my one safe person, someone I tricked into wanting to be with me, sees me for what I am.

Should it be a lesson on dying? Lying on your bead, body tingling and mind dissociating, crying because this is it, you finally get to die, as your heart finally, fucking finally matches the rest of you and just, at last, I knew it had to happen, slows down. Breathes are slower and shallower and you can’t believe it—you always knew that this couldn’t be real, that someone as awful as you couldn’t actually go on existing, and you’d always wondered if and when the moment would come when your body would finally get what the rest of the world knew. You slow, you slow, this is horrible and fantastic and so wanted, so needed, finally—and then your lungs seize up and drag in breath after breath because no. You can’t even have this.

Teach me a lesson.

I have so much to teach you.