October 2007
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Drown the Sea

by Liz Dunford

My delusions of grandeur began to take flight in high school.  I had just seen Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” when I
started thinking that I resembled Jim Morrison, both spiritually and physically.  I was a morbidly unpopular child.

I grew out my hair, styled it like Morrison and took on a perpetually dazed, drug-addled look even though I had never
even seen drugs.  No one was able to understand what in the hell I was saying in those days, but I knew that was
precisely the kind of stuff Morrison had to deal with before everyone realized he was a genius.

I spent most of my time posing in front the mirror with my shirt off, mimicking the multitude of Morrison posters
hanging on my bedroom walls.  I was also taking a lot of pictures of myself, then comparing them with photos of “The
Doors”’ front man.  I would have to squint my eyes and cock my head back before I saw even the faintest resemblance
between us.   With the help of a professional photographer and his specialized studio lighting, I reasoned I could
have the same chiseled jaw and sparkling eyes as the Lizard King.  I regularly tore my pictures to shreds.

At a certain point, I realized that plastic surgery was the only way of permanently rectifying some of the physical
discrepancies between Jim and me.  I located a surgeon in a far-off suburb who offered a 15% rebate on his services
with the presentation of a student ID card.  I made the appointment and felt sick to my stomach.

In his tiny office, the doctor examined my face as I described the Grecian looks I was going for.  He explained to me,
free of charge, that a lot of people had false expectations about plastic surgery, that many believed a mere nip or tuck
would cure their lives of unhappiness, but nothing would change this, so why not save my money and see a
psychologist.

I scheduled my surgery for the following month but cancelled at the last minute and didn’t bother rescheduling.  I had
convinced a girl to go out with me.

I had seen her around school before we were formally introduced.  She was a striking vision in tie-dye, with bell-
bottomed feet, and jingly seashell necklaces, slinking down the hallways full of straight-laced quarterback star
wannabes. She was very friendly, possibly the friendliest person I had met up until then.  I could sense there was
something definitely wrong with her.

We met at a choir recital at the local Catholic Church. At the party afterwards we talked on a darkened staircase,
sipping cheap wine we weren’t supposed to touch.  She told me she was in love a guy named Ross, but he had given
her the old-fashioned fuck around.  When I told her about my hatred for life and people, my disgust with myself, about
the agony of being locked in my head for a single day, that sleep and walks in the forest were the only things keeping
me from doing the unthinkable; she called me self-pitying.  It was probably one of the happiest nights I ever had in
high school.

That weekend we walked around our village together.  It was the first date of our fledging romance, and I was hoping
to make love to her on the rooftop of the hardware store.  As we strolled along, I placed my hand in hers, but she
hesitated and we scarcely walked a block before I let go. Who would have guessed that that would be the last time I’d
hold her hand, or anyone else’s hand, for that matter, for the next three years?

We came to a grocery store where two popular early teenaged girls were hanging out. They asked my girlfriend who I
was.  When she informed them, the girls prodded the backs of their throats in a gesture of self-induced purging.  I
genuinely disgusted them.  The girls saw with clear eyes what I truly was: a weirdo, with hair like Jim Morrison, trying
to drown the sea.

The summer came, and I chopped off my hair, and bought a new wardrobe at a mall that I had vowed never to shop at
and had derided everyone who had.

This marked the end of my psychedelic period.