Insecurities are a bitch. 

It’s just one of those things that comes with life—something that each of us have for different reasons. For her, her arms were the one place on her body where she felt the most vulnerable. It was the one place on her body where she felt the most exposed, so she did her best to keep them hidden. Ever since she was a little girl, she taught herself to always cover up her arms when in public—a weird little insecurity, but it was something she lived with, something she found to be a very big deal deep inside her heart. She had more than her fair share of sweaters, long-sleeved shirts, cardigans, etc. Honestly, anything that kept the skin between her wrist and her shoulders covered was enough for her. It was one of the little things in her life that seemed small and insignificant to others but, in reality, was a huge deal to her. 

Sleeves, whether they came from jackets, cardigans, or just your basic shirt, were her protection. They kept the hungry gaze of the world away from the one part of her body that had all her secrets. Her arms knew everything about her and, in a way, they were her diary. She would sit in her room and write down everything she felt—each emotion, each word, phrase, quote from the day, comma, and period—on her arms. She would sit there alone, bare, and completely vulnerable as everything she could ever possibly feel came rolling out from her mind and onto her arms. And when she was done expressing herself, when she was done filling in the pages of her body diary, she would cover them up again until the next day. She would cover them up until the next time she was ready to write—to express. To her, seeing her arms was like seeing her secrets; they were her imperfections that she tried so hard to hide behind the everyday façade she created. 

It wasn’t even the arms that made her feel insecure; it was what was on them. All her secrets, all her feelings—things she had only ever uttered in absolute secrecy, the absolute deepest parts of her soul—could be easily exposed by just one look at them. At the same time, they could be misinterpreted, misunderstood. They were every weary scar that climbs up the length of her forearms from that horrible week and the cracks and slices that sadly zig-zag down the stream of her wrist into a pool of angry days and mental arguments. Everything was there. The very thought of someone new seeing all the things that were wrong with her made her heart race and her blood run cold. It made her insides turn, and the ready-made tears in her eyes brace themselves. It was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to her, because no one would understand. They wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t understand. No one would understand what she meant when she did those things or why she felt those things. They were her secrets. They would judge her, question her. Perhaps they would even think something was wrong with her. She couldn’t let that happen.; she had to stay calm. She had to tug tighter on her sleeves, keep her head lower, and blend into the walls. She felt as though she was physically and mentally unable to allow people into her mind, the same way she couldn’t let people into her room if she hadn’t made her bed or put the laundry away. 

It was messy in there.

It was all her chaos and things that she felt she could handle on her own, but at the same time couldn’t. Every time she thought about it, she had to pause.

Take a deep breath.

Inhale.

She was okay now. 

She just had a lot of emotions. She had a lot of inner demons she didn’t know how to let other people see. There are days, however—and she dreads those days with all the passion she had welled up inside of her—when the room on her arms, the one place she was able to express herself in the only way she knew how, would run out. She would have no more room left. She would have to wait until the words faded away into her skin to create a new canvas. A canvas just little more scratched up than the last. But until then, she had to find a replacement—a new insecurity, one that she could use in temporary replacement of her arms. 

Picking up her pen and a piece of paper, she would soon begin to write, to express on a real paper, with real ink, how she really felt on the inside. Her words would soon become her new insecurity—something she could only keep for herself.

She began to realize with each word—each piece, poem, and phrase—that she kept tucked away in her journal, the scars on her arms began to fade. The need to express herself on her own skin began to set like the sun but cease to rise. Her sleeves began to tuck away at the back of her mind, rolling upwards as if trying to reach the sky. She felt strong; she found a new power. There were times that would sneak up on her where the familiar need to scratch and claw her emotions onto her skin, like her own personal tattoo artist, would rise again. In those times, she would either succumb to the advances of the voices in her head telling her that the pen and paper in her hand wasn’t enough—would never be enough—or she would grab her notepad, a pen, and use the words rolling inside her brain to talk to the feeling and plead with it to leave her alone. Her words, to her, had a power that only she could harness.

Her pen would roll onto the paper louder than her mind could process, and she was discovering new emotions and feelings with each entry. Her journal became her sleeves—her means of protection. Her words became her arms; they were something she felt the need to tuck away and hide from wandering eyes. She could look back on her emotions in the form of words and contemplate, remember, and embrace. She realized that the longer she went without using her arms as a journal, the more open she felt. 

The more open she felt, the shorter her sleeves became.  

She was open. She never realized how closed off she was from the people around her. She never realized how alone she was until she began opening up and having others see her for who she really was.

She found strength in the words that she wrote. She found solace, control, and understanding. She felt like she had gained a new insecurity, but it was one that she felt totally and completely secure in. It was like the blossoming of a new relationship that comes after a teary-eyed breakup. It was an insecurity she kept covered between thick bindings of a notebook. 

Her journey with writing started with mental pain and manifested into physical. The pain she felt became her release, and her release soon turned into the words she wrote. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was finally the one in control. With her words, she could make anything happen—realistic or not. With her words, she could make anything true or false, believable or not. With her words, she felt as though she could finally understand the way she was feeling inside.

Writing became one of the most important relationships this girl had in her life; it became her best friend. Rather than carving the feelings she tried so hard not to feel into her body, she would grab a pen. With this, she was free to express as much as she wanted. All the words were under her control, in her court. Holding a pen in her hand was when she felt the safest and the most scared. It was almost exciting. In a way, writing became the beginning to a whole new life for her—it saved her. It opened her up to a new world that, perhaps, wasn’t as dark and gloomy as she had thought it to be. It saved her from feeling pain when she verbalized her emotions—a pain she copied onto her arms. She was learning. She was growing. Writing became the first instance in her life where she felt as though she was going up rather than sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness that was becoming her life. It was the first instance where she felt even a millet seed of hope for herself. She fell in love with writing.

Insecurities are a bitch, but writing—her most secure insecurity—saved her life. 

-Nala Cole

A 23-year-old girl trying to express her thoughts, heart, and mind through words.