Blooden'd tears fall upon
Thy tender cheek.
A hollow chime is laid
Bare on swollen ears.

The blank canvas of thy
Body lies still like a mirror'd
Pool in aspect of night's
Algid face of innocence.

Under evocative, tragic skies,
In the fields of summer bright,
Lost in lamentation's hue
Thy death as sweet as roses' bloom.

"This is nice?"
You stated nervously, as if it where a question you shouldn't be asking.

I nodded.
- Cringing at your lack of confidence

"Yeah it is, Thankyou."
- for teaching me how to be fake.

"I'm glad your having a nice time"
You said, fiddling with the zip on your jacket pocket.

I could not reply, I just smiled numbly.

You smiled too.
- numbly.

This was when I realised I was talking to myself.

Taking to someone who's thoughts, where so similar to my own.

Talking to someone who was always asking.

I had caught a glimpse of what it was like to be around me, and hated it.

- I hated me.

I hated my unsteady heart beat, my constant need for reassurance.

I hated that I craved acceptance and would do anything to receive it.

I hated that I was so scared of disappointing him, like you where scared of disappointing me.

- I hated the fact I was fragile

Your fingers slowly brushed against my palm, I guess you where asking if we could hold hands, but I moved away.

You where so shy and so sweet and so good, I knew that, but I also knew me.

*- I couldn't hold into something that I knew was going to break.

I have a scar on the bottom of my left thumb.
I got it
The day after you broke my heart the second time.
I was trying to open something with a knife
And it slipped.
It went straight in
Point first
Right at the joint between my thumb and the pad of my hand
That fleshy spot that is always stretching and wrinkling.
I was shocked at first- it went in deep
Almost two inches.
I suppose, maybe, I should have gotten stitches.
But what I did instead was pull the point out
pop
It made a small sound
Like I was unstopping a tiny bottle of wine.
In fact the hole in my hand
Remained clean and white and surprised
For a moment
Startled, I think, by its own existence.
And then it caught up to itself all at once
And bubbled up thick red blood
Faster than I expected it to.
Beads of it slid down my fingers.
Soon my hand was slick with it
Shaking
And I was still fascinated, transfixed,
Slow.
When the first drop hit the carpet
I figured I should go into the bathroom and let the tiles take the stains.
On the way there the world tilted a little
Since now I held in my cupped hand a small pool of red.
I resented my body's need for its own blood.
Its fragility.
It is so needy and so frail
And I have no patience for it.
On my knees on the smooth cold white floor
And then with my cheek pressed against it
To calm the fever of "shock"
I hated that my shell could steal my will.
I stood again in a moment
Having left a smudge on the floor
And my hand dripped
pat pat pat
Onto the tiles.
The smoothness of my own blood surprised me-
Its tendency to slip away and stand in pools.
Again I looked for a moment
And then ran my hand beneath the faucet
And marveled at the way the water was instantly crimson.
It kept running and running down the drain
And after a while I realized that it was unlikely to stop.
Lifting my now white hand
I peered at it
And there was the hole in it-
A perfect slit, deep and clean and filling up with dark sticky red fluid.
It overflowed again and I did my best to wrap it in bandages.
The bathroom looked like a ****** scene.
Who knew my hands
Held so much?
Who knew we were so easily punctured and drained?
It took a long time to heal.
I kept ripping it open by accident over and over
Because of its prime location in the crease of my hand.
It was weeks, really, before it actually did close.
And weeks more
Before it finally became less of an angry red
And more of a thick, shiny pinkish white.
It is raised.
It still hurts sometimes, even though it has been months healed.
I rather like it.
I like the gory proof of what I went through when you walked away.
It's just a small reminder,
A little white ridge and a tightness on my skin
But
Well
They say you don't know anything
Quite so well as the look of your own hands
And
I think it is appropriate that the landscape of mine
Was forever changed
When you left.

And the trees about me,
      Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
      Groan with continual surges; and behind me
      Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!


Paint me a cavernous waste shore
  Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
  Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me ****** above
  Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
  And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
  (Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
  Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
  Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
  The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
  Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
  And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
  Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
  And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
  Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
  Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)

Tests the razor on his leg
  Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
  Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
  Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
  And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
  Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
  It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
  Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
  And a glass of brandy neat.

These scars
on my arm
remind me
that I am not the person I was before.
Ropy and twisted,
they are scraped across my skin
in memory of all the pains I suffered-
heartache,
betrayal,
torture,
abuse.
They will never leave me,
a permanent discovery of self
that should never be forgotten.
I used to wish I could make them go away,
ashamed of my tainted appearance,
ashamed of my frailty exposed in public.
But, now,
they are like a map to me-
crossroads etched across my skin
in purpling reds and browns;
a timeline that reminds me of how far I have come,
and what I have gone through to get here.
Sometimes, I look at them
and can see where I need to go next-
for each scar has its own story,
and its own lesson.
So, if you see me
on the streets,
arms bared and waving in the wind-
just know that these scars are mine,
my journey,
my burden to bear;
be happy for me-
not sad for the person you think I am-
I know where I've been,
and I know where i'm going.

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?