Slicing deep, I feel nothing except the most heady relief as my skin parts like too tender meat under the blade. I’m removed from myself then. Released, renewed, reinvented as my blood runs down my forearm to puddle on the table.
This cut, like most things in my life, isn’t as deep as it seems. Or maybe it’s deeper than I realize but ignore the truth because I can’t handle it.
I look at the ruby-red concoction that is my blood as it collects. So beautiful and exciting as it tries to survive outside of me. It’s gorgeous, vibrant like the woman I passed on the street with her slender waist and easy smile. When’s the last time I smiled so sweetly?
Another cut and I hiss this time. It’s not along my artery because I don’t want to end my life just add feeling and color to it. The blood beads as I slice and then runs like a river along the first. The pain is an exotic mix.
I’m a fast-moving stream again and my life feels closer than it did before I cut.
Slipping the razor blade into that place I keep it for moments when I need to feel, I clean myself up as efficiently as I slid the knife across my arm. The cuts are throbbing, angry sores beneath the bandages. Blinking lights that I am alive.
Finally I can smile.
Comments
oh wow, how poetic and beautiful, in a haunting, true,eery way. My neighbor cuts herself so it’s a scary thing when she does. She’s very very young. Your words put the act into a whole other reality. ( btw – putting ice to the skin is safer – just sayin’ for anyone who wants a strong feeling without the need to cut. )
Author
I have no desire to self-harm in this way. I’d much rather have someone spank my ass and get a release that way. I was trying to understand why someone would cut so I wrote this.
I think you possibly hit it on the head without the anger. you made it personal and touching. thats amazing how you tapped into that
Author
My personal feelings leaked in as they sometimes do. I find stuff like this interesting to write once and a while.
This is a really neat piece. I like it a lot.
Author
Thanks!
Is it weird that I thought it was hot? 😉
Author
Lol. I guess it could be seen as sexy.
Disconcertingly beautiful… which is pretty much the only way to write about such topics without disturbing most readers too much, keeping one truly in the mind of someone under-taking any kind of self-mutilation. Your emphasis on the need to feel alive is what carries this through for me as more than just pretty words that sound good together and I’d be curious I admit to read a longer story with a similar narrating character, mostly to see what it would be like to be within such a mind.
I can’t help it, curiosity is a bit of an addiction for me.
Cheers!
Author
I’m not sure I could sustain a longer story. While I think I understand the gut need to cut, I’ve never actually done it. I’m not sure I could remain in this mindset long enough to tell a story.
I know the feeling, it’s hard to sustain a mindset far removed from ones own. I’ve never tried it myself but as I said, always curious.
Tried writing a story like this about someone who suffered from clinical (as opposed to the popular perception of) psychopathy and while it turned out interesting, I had to stop at a point and have yet to get back to it – though I really want to and see where it goes.
Author
Psychological dysfunction starts to feel too much like reality if we try to understand it in a writerly form. It would mess with my head too much if I went there.
I know the feeling.