Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Keep On Licking Scars
I sat on my bed and flicked through the pages of the magazine I had bought when I last went to the off licence down the road. It was the type of magazine that no one in my family was supposed to know I now owned – it was littered with images of naked woman after naked woman. Sometimes pictures of naked women with other naked women. I was looking at the pictures in both horror and fascination. For starters, I couldn’t quite grasp the concept that women actually allowed men to take their pictures like this. They were butt naked, often with their legs spread wide and with an unflattering camera angle. All the guys cared about was seeing an ‘up-skirt-shot’ with no actual skirt or underwear. Often, they had their hands on their breasts, holding them up higher and enhancing them. They were on full display to anyone and everyone who picked up the magazine.
But apart from the simple fact that I was so confused as to why they would let themselves be displayed like that, I was looking at the images with revulsion and slight sadness. I was completely grossed out by the idea of these women in a sexual manner. Women were beautiful, I couldn’t deny that fact, but they weren’t sexually appealing to me. And for that, I was sad. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be like the rest of the male student body at my school and screwing another chick every weekend. Banging her and bragging about it the next day. Why was I so turned-off by the opposite gender?
Maybe I was just going through a phase. Maybe I was just a ‘late bloomer’. Maybe my time would come. I had plenty of life ahead of me to find the girl of my dreams. Just because I was 17, and still a virgin, didn’t mean that I had to find a girl now and screw her into oblivion. I had all the time in the world to lose my virginity...
I just felt like such a fucking loser.
The pictures in front of me were doing nothing to me. They weren’t causing thoughts of all the things I would want to do to a girl to flood my imagination; they weren’t causing me to get an erection. My cock was still as flaccid as ever. Limp between my crossed legs.
I wanted to lose my virginity – I really did. I just wasn’t turned on by girls and it would be a bit embarrassing to try having sex with one if I couldn’t even get a hard-on. She’d laugh and then the whole school would know that I, Frank Iero, could not get an erection. They’d probably make some joke and say that I had erectile dysfunction. I didn’t. I knew that for a fact. I had had a boner enough times; I had whacked off enough times, to know that there was nothing wrong with my genitals. They worked perfectly fine, thanks. It was just that girls didn’t do it for me.
There was one guy on my mind whenever I wanked.
And I didn’t know what scared me more: the fact that girls couldn’t give me an erection, or the fact that a man could.
He was what my mind would jump to when I couldn’t sleep at night.
I hated those times. When your body was so tired but your mind so awake. Those times led me to think of the guy at the record shop and I’d begin to daydream – I would get lost in a world of wishing and fantasies. I’d imagine that he was there with me, too. I would be resting my head on his stomach as his long, thin fingers worked their way through my hair, playing with the strands of my natural dark-brown locks. He would be clad in only a pair of boxers, as would I, and I’d trail my fingers across his smooth chest.
He was, to put it simply, beautiful. He had this cool and collected air around him. He would walk around the shop with confidence and grace and he would never give in to the sexual advances that women oh-so-subtly tried on him. He would brush them off politely and continue showing them to the section of the store that they wanted with a smile on his face. He was so confident, so poised, so absolutely stunning.
His body was one to die for. He wasn’t stick thin and he wasn’t overweight. He was full and curved in a slightly feminine way that he pulled off so well. Unlike me, he carried himself with self-belief. I was short and slightly too thin for my liking. I wanted to bulk up. He would wear tight jeans that clung to his thick thighs and bottom, along with class-style converse. His tops varied from plain black shirts that showed off his flat abdomen or tight t-shirts that, too, showed off his torso. He wasn’t ashamed of his body; he accepted it and showed it off to the world. He was everything that I wanted to be and more.
So, at night when I couldn’t sleep, I would begin thinking about him. It was all fantasy. There was no way that he’d ever notice me. Plus, I didn’t even know if he was gay.
I was still confused about whether I was gay. There was the possibility that I just wanted to be him, not be with him.
It was all too hard for my simple mind to cope with. I was so used to having the answers spoon-fed to me by my teachers. In class, they gave you all the information that you needed to pass the exams. All you had to do was go away and learn what they had given you. But with this, it was all down to me. I had to go away and do the research. I had to find the answers.
I didn’t know how to do it. It wasn’t as if I could just go up to a guy at school and plant my mouth on his. I couldn’t just kiss a guy and expect to know the answer. Apart from the fact that I’d probably be punched in the face and then kicked in the balls, some random guy wasn’t the guy I wanted to kiss.
I wanted to kiss that guy at the record shop.
I needed to find a way that I could talk to him, become his friend. I needed to find a way into his life and allow him into mine.
With a huff I threw the magazine under my bed and got underneath the covers. It was nearing one in the morning and I had school that day so I needed to be awake for 7. I was beginning to get frustrated with myself and my finger nails instantly went for my arms, picking at the already fresh wounds that covered my arms. I picked the scabs and open sores harshly, ripping away the skin that needed to be there to protect my body against infection. They stung and burned but I kept picking them until they bled and I felt satisfied.
Picking my skin wasn’t something that I did only when I was frustrated. I did it when I was happy, too. Or angry, or sad. I always picked my skin and I always had – ever since I was a little boy.
It had started off with me biting my nails and then moving onto the skin around my nails. There was just something so satisfactory about pulling away the calloused skin and feeling it hard in your mouth. I would bite it, chew it, and swallow it. Others thought that it was disgusting but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.
Then I moved onto skin elsewhere. The skin around and under my nails was the only skin that I actually ate and picked with my teeth. But I would pick the skin on my arms and legs. It started when I got a cut from something that I can’t remember. It doesn’t really matter what the cut had been from. But that cut sparked something and I began to pick it along with my nails. I pulled my skin away and felt the enjoyment of focusing on nothing other than picking. In a way, it kept me sane. It kept me grounded. In those moments that I was picking my skin I was thinking about only picking my skin. I wasn’t thinking about my confused sexuality; the guy at the record shop; the other kids at school who thought I was a bit weird. I was thinking about pulling the skin away from the cut, of the control I had.
Because that was what it gave me. An ounce of control over my mundane life. I was under my parents’ watchful eyes until I was 18 – and even then I would still be living at home until I went away to college or had enough money to move out. I didn’t like the control that they had over me. But, then again, what teenager really did? They were the ultimate decision makers in whether I went out at the weekends, whether I stayed round a friend’s house. They were who I had to go to if I wanted to go out – I would have to get the nod of approval.
It wasn’t as if they ever said ‘no’ if I wanted to go out. They let me, alright. They were so thrilled when I went out. I didn’t do it often, so at any chance they got they would throw me out of the house. My mum had said to me once that she didn’t think I had friends. She thought I was completely by myself.
I had friends. Not many, but friends nonetheless. I would rather have a few close friends than lots of distant ones. Plus, my friends came with me to the record store so that I wouldn’t look like a complete loser by myself.
They didn’t know about my slight obsession with the guy that worked there every day apart from Friday, Saturday afternoons and Sundays – yes, I had managed to work out his work schedule. They just thought that I liked looking at the CDs. I did like looking at the CDs; I just liked looking at him more. I made it so that I would go into the store whenever I knew that he was working there. I didn’t go in every time (then he probably would think that I was a total loser – whether I was with friends or not), but if I wanted to go to the store I would make sure that it was at a time I knew he would be there.
He never noticed me. I would walk past him when he was stacking the shelves and try and catch his eye. It never worked. I would just end up looking like a spaz, craning my neck as I walked by. It made me sad, thinking that he would never even dream about being with me like I dreamed about being with him. Those God forsaken daydreams that I would have as I lay in bed in the middle of the night, or in the middle of class when I was so bored. He was in my mind 24/7 – infecting my head with his intoxicating aura. He was so beautiful. And I was so ugly.
But apart from the simple fact that I was so confused as to why they would let themselves be displayed like that, I was looking at the images with revulsion and slight sadness. I was completely grossed out by the idea of these women in a sexual manner. Women were beautiful, I couldn’t deny that fact, but they weren’t sexually appealing to me. And for that, I was sad. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be like the rest of the male student body at my school and screwing another chick every weekend. Banging her and bragging about it the next day. Why was I so turned-off by the opposite gender?
Maybe I was just going through a phase. Maybe I was just a ‘late bloomer’. Maybe my time would come. I had plenty of life ahead of me to find the girl of my dreams. Just because I was 17, and still a virgin, didn’t mean that I had to find a girl now and screw her into oblivion. I had all the time in the world to lose my virginity...
I just felt like such a fucking loser.
The pictures in front of me were doing nothing to me. They weren’t causing thoughts of all the things I would want to do to a girl to flood my imagination; they weren’t causing me to get an erection. My cock was still as flaccid as ever. Limp between my crossed legs.
I wanted to lose my virginity – I really did. I just wasn’t turned on by girls and it would be a bit embarrassing to try having sex with one if I couldn’t even get a hard-on. She’d laugh and then the whole school would know that I, Frank Iero, could not get an erection. They’d probably make some joke and say that I had erectile dysfunction. I didn’t. I knew that for a fact. I had had a boner enough times; I had whacked off enough times, to know that there was nothing wrong with my genitals. They worked perfectly fine, thanks. It was just that girls didn’t do it for me.
There was one guy on my mind whenever I wanked.
And I didn’t know what scared me more: the fact that girls couldn’t give me an erection, or the fact that a man could.
He was what my mind would jump to when I couldn’t sleep at night.
I hated those times. When your body was so tired but your mind so awake. Those times led me to think of the guy at the record shop and I’d begin to daydream – I would get lost in a world of wishing and fantasies. I’d imagine that he was there with me, too. I would be resting my head on his stomach as his long, thin fingers worked their way through my hair, playing with the strands of my natural dark-brown locks. He would be clad in only a pair of boxers, as would I, and I’d trail my fingers across his smooth chest.
He was, to put it simply, beautiful. He had this cool and collected air around him. He would walk around the shop with confidence and grace and he would never give in to the sexual advances that women oh-so-subtly tried on him. He would brush them off politely and continue showing them to the section of the store that they wanted with a smile on his face. He was so confident, so poised, so absolutely stunning.
His body was one to die for. He wasn’t stick thin and he wasn’t overweight. He was full and curved in a slightly feminine way that he pulled off so well. Unlike me, he carried himself with self-belief. I was short and slightly too thin for my liking. I wanted to bulk up. He would wear tight jeans that clung to his thick thighs and bottom, along with class-style converse. His tops varied from plain black shirts that showed off his flat abdomen or tight t-shirts that, too, showed off his torso. He wasn’t ashamed of his body; he accepted it and showed it off to the world. He was everything that I wanted to be and more.
So, at night when I couldn’t sleep, I would begin thinking about him. It was all fantasy. There was no way that he’d ever notice me. Plus, I didn’t even know if he was gay.
I was still confused about whether I was gay. There was the possibility that I just wanted to be him, not be with him.
It was all too hard for my simple mind to cope with. I was so used to having the answers spoon-fed to me by my teachers. In class, they gave you all the information that you needed to pass the exams. All you had to do was go away and learn what they had given you. But with this, it was all down to me. I had to go away and do the research. I had to find the answers.
I didn’t know how to do it. It wasn’t as if I could just go up to a guy at school and plant my mouth on his. I couldn’t just kiss a guy and expect to know the answer. Apart from the fact that I’d probably be punched in the face and then kicked in the balls, some random guy wasn’t the guy I wanted to kiss.
I wanted to kiss that guy at the record shop.
I needed to find a way that I could talk to him, become his friend. I needed to find a way into his life and allow him into mine.
With a huff I threw the magazine under my bed and got underneath the covers. It was nearing one in the morning and I had school that day so I needed to be awake for 7. I was beginning to get frustrated with myself and my finger nails instantly went for my arms, picking at the already fresh wounds that covered my arms. I picked the scabs and open sores harshly, ripping away the skin that needed to be there to protect my body against infection. They stung and burned but I kept picking them until they bled and I felt satisfied.
Picking my skin wasn’t something that I did only when I was frustrated. I did it when I was happy, too. Or angry, or sad. I always picked my skin and I always had – ever since I was a little boy.
It had started off with me biting my nails and then moving onto the skin around my nails. There was just something so satisfactory about pulling away the calloused skin and feeling it hard in your mouth. I would bite it, chew it, and swallow it. Others thought that it was disgusting but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.
Then I moved onto skin elsewhere. The skin around and under my nails was the only skin that I actually ate and picked with my teeth. But I would pick the skin on my arms and legs. It started when I got a cut from something that I can’t remember. It doesn’t really matter what the cut had been from. But that cut sparked something and I began to pick it along with my nails. I pulled my skin away and felt the enjoyment of focusing on nothing other than picking. In a way, it kept me sane. It kept me grounded. In those moments that I was picking my skin I was thinking about only picking my skin. I wasn’t thinking about my confused sexuality; the guy at the record shop; the other kids at school who thought I was a bit weird. I was thinking about pulling the skin away from the cut, of the control I had.
Because that was what it gave me. An ounce of control over my mundane life. I was under my parents’ watchful eyes until I was 18 – and even then I would still be living at home until I went away to college or had enough money to move out. I didn’t like the control that they had over me. But, then again, what teenager really did? They were the ultimate decision makers in whether I went out at the weekends, whether I stayed round a friend’s house. They were who I had to go to if I wanted to go out – I would have to get the nod of approval.
It wasn’t as if they ever said ‘no’ if I wanted to go out. They let me, alright. They were so thrilled when I went out. I didn’t do it often, so at any chance they got they would throw me out of the house. My mum had said to me once that she didn’t think I had friends. She thought I was completely by myself.
I had friends. Not many, but friends nonetheless. I would rather have a few close friends than lots of distant ones. Plus, my friends came with me to the record store so that I wouldn’t look like a complete loser by myself.
They didn’t know about my slight obsession with the guy that worked there every day apart from Friday, Saturday afternoons and Sundays – yes, I had managed to work out his work schedule. They just thought that I liked looking at the CDs. I did like looking at the CDs; I just liked looking at him more. I made it so that I would go into the store whenever I knew that he was working there. I didn’t go in every time (then he probably would think that I was a total loser – whether I was with friends or not), but if I wanted to go to the store I would make sure that it was at a time I knew he would be there.
He never noticed me. I would walk past him when he was stacking the shelves and try and catch his eye. It never worked. I would just end up looking like a spaz, craning my neck as I walked by. It made me sad, thinking that he would never even dream about being with me like I dreamed about being with him. Those God forsaken daydreams that I would have as I lay in bed in the middle of the night, or in the middle of class when I was so bored. He was in my mind 24/7 – infecting my head with his intoxicating aura. He was so beautiful. And I was so ugly.
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