The Edge of Seventeen

When I was seventeen I

thought I was the

devil

No joke

I was lustful

steaming

restless

I thought goddamn

Everything I shouldn’t

be

I am

I was seventeen when I made up my mind for good that I was a bad girl. It had been a fairly easy decision, even though I’d fooled myself along the way that I was conflicted about it. The parameters of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in my world had been set up very early. It was a lot easier to be ‘bad’ than it was to be ‘good’. If I wanted to be ‘good’ I would have to be a sober, soft-spoken virgin all my life, rather than the ravenous-for-experience artist which I found much more exciting as a prospect.

I often thought about my inevitable condemnation to hellfire and fury before I did the thing anyway. My justification being that wanting to do a thing was basically the same thing as doing it and I really wanted to do things.

I got to thinking that some people were just born ‘good’ and others born ‘bad’ and I was obviously the latter. If I was destined for hell no matter what then why not enjoy the ride? Surely that’s the message of predestination.

(It’s worth noting that I no longer believe this, time has taught me the significance of nuance and the importance of forgiveness.)

By now, school was a write off. I dreamed of abandoning academia forever. I spent a lot of time in detention. I had an intense distrust of authority. I was told I would amount to nothing. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote. I orchestrated my own personal curriculum. I lacked the ability to even feign interest in anything that didn’t enchant me. I only performed well in English Literature, every assessment was a near perfect score. I didn’t allow myself to study or revise for the tests until the ten minutes prior, enjoying the way the adrenaline sharpened my mind. I got a thrill from analysing the classics, from making connections like constellations and diving into the depths of metaphorical meaning on the page. I knew I loved words but I had no idea what my future held.

‘I might write a book or be a screenwriter,’ I said. ‘I love to act, maybe I’ll be an actress.’

I remember the career advisor’s sneering mockery, ‘I’m not sure that’s very realistic. Don’t you know how hard it is to get a job like that without knowing anyone? With zero connections you won’t get very far.’

I shrugged, it couldn’t be any harder getting a job I wanted than one I didn’t. I wasn’t afraid of poverty or hard work or rejection, the only thing that frightened me was the idea of not living the way I wanted to. I didn’t know if that was too grand a goal but I knew I was prepared to die trying.

In the mean time, I was troubled by the feeling that my youth was burning out. I needed secrets to sustain me. For as long as I can remember I’ve had the desire for a double life, the desire for a side of me that answers to no-one and is just mine. To be a person defined on their own terms rather than a daughter or a sister or a girlfriend has always struck me as being the highest and truest form of freedom. Real power meant existing without explanation, that was what I wanted.

So I took my fake ID to an audition at a London burlesque club which shall remain nameless seeing as I was underage at the time that I started performing there. I’d given up ballet and I missed performance. I missed the artistry of it and I missed the attention. I missed the exhilaration that came with it. I craved moments of perfection, of ecstatic spiritual and bodily unity. The easiest way to describe it is to say, I like things to look on the outside the way they are on the inside. The way something walks, smells, and talks should all be exact expressions of its soul.

Performing gave me moments where I felt like that.

I covered myself in pearlescent glitter, I wore shreds of tinsel in my hair. I looked like a star come to life, like I was made of fairy-dust. It was a spiritual act for me. A ritual. And I was perfect. Truly perfect. I looked on the outside how I felt on the inside. I moved like a star, down to my pointed toes, down to my fingertips. And I was never happier than when I was temporarily blinded by the spotlight in my eyes and when the tiny specks of shimmery eyeshadow that shed onto my eyelashes- caught there like snowflakes- imbued my vision with sparkle. The music vibrated through me, swallowed me, made me part of it.

When I performed I felt a surge of power within me that reassured me I could do anything. I didn’t feel like a bad girl, despite all the rules I’d broken to arrive at that moment, so utterly perfect that I’d treasure it forever. How could something so wonderful be bad?

It made me question whether there were different ways of connecting with the divine. Maybe I could make it to heaven after all.