It's midnight.
Outside, people are singing a birthday song for one of my neighbours.
Inside, I have been taking an ice cold shower for over an hour because it's just as painful as cutting open my skin when I turn the water scalding hot every fifteen minutes, but it doesn't leave any scars.
My phone died. The shrink was trying to talk me out of it and into my own bed, promised he wouldn't leave, wouldn't leave me alone, not him, not this time. He said he would help me through it. I believed him. Still do. I guess I'll find out if that's stupid. Later. When he leaves.
Skin was just talking. She's good at that. She's always been good at that. The way her words wrap around everything bad in my head and suffocate it makes me want to curl up and sleep everything off.
Lumberjack just... just was. I don't know how he knew. He just did. Sometimes I wish I could talk to him.
But there's a reason I pray cold showers will mimic the rain and wash everything away. There's a reason for every faint line on my legs, my arms, my stomach.
I say: Crying is for the weak.
Shrink says: Crying is for those who deal. It's for people who've been strong.
I deal in my own way. It's the only way that seems to work. The only way I can think of. Nothing soothes better than red drops and raindrops.
I should crawl into bed. I should never come out again. I should die here, on the bathroom floor, surrounded by tiles and soap and cold water. I should die somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere private. I should seek out an empty spot and slit my wrists. How do you slit your second wrist, anyway? I read that most people pass out before they can make the most damaging cut.
No. I should crawl into bed. There's no reason for thirteen. There's no reason for blood, or death, or my mother crying. There's no reason for flowers or funerals or picking out your best suit.

It's 1AM. I'm still in the shower.

look,
she will never tell you her deepest secrets or kiss you quite long enough to feel whole. and some nights she will sneak out of bed and yell when you follow her, because there are nights when she needs to breathe and there have been too many fires too close to her throat lately.
let her go. tell her you know about thunderstorms, about storms so rough you seem to topple over at the thought of them—tell her, you too, have felt the earth shake beneath the soles of your feet a few times too many to stay still.
you don’t have to kiss her scars. you just have to kiss her.
boy, on good days, take her by her bruised hands and lead her to a place where you have always found sanctuary. kiss her then. she will trace your bones with her tongue and lay her hand on your chest to check if you’re hollow. kiss her then. sometimes she will smoke to fill herself with something else than pain. kiss her then.
look: when she trembles so loud you can hear her empty bones rattle, place one hand in her hair and one on her hip and kiss her. kiss her until she stills. being an avalanche like her is exhausting, but sometimes she just won’t know how to stop it.
when she falls asleep on the couch again, know that she is not avoiding you. she’s avoiding the emptiness of having you so close she doesn’t know if she’s allowed to touch yet. she doesn’t know if she earned it yet. and when you see her do her workout routine twice, it’s because the couch is giving her trouble sleeping—even more than the bed did. she hopes she will be too tired to care this way.
take her by the hand again. take her to bed. place her head on your chest. show her it’s alright to touch.
when she tells you she’s been counting the cracks in the ceiling because her head is filled with ideas of death and despair, repaint it. tell her this is a new colour for new thoughts and new beginnings. cover her eyes. kiss her eyelids. tell her they don’t always filter light but they don’t have to. tell her it’s alright to be an avalanche. tell her it’s alright to be an avalanche.
but remember this: when you are ready to fall to your knees, she will be there. when you feel the earth tremble beneath your feet, she will be there. and when your hands shake so much you don’t think you can hold her anymore, she will be there.
there is so much more to her than just something to hold. she’s not just this anger, she’s not just this closeness in her veins that makes you forget the way home, she is so much more than just gritting teeth and letting it go.
when you are ready to fall, she will always be there to catch you. remember: she knows the ripple of hurt that tears through your body so violently—she knows how it feels. she has felt it herself. when you tremble, she will make you still. when you tremble, she will make you still.
this is not just about her. this is about you, too. about the cracks in your ceiling. about your avalanche. realise that she understands. when you lay your head on her chest to check if she is hollow, realise she knows exactly what you’re doing. when you ask her to pass the cigarette, realise that she too, knows how it feels to fill yourself with something besides pain.
oh sweetheart, when the vastness of her love makes you agoraphobic, she will take you to the place she loves most and kiss you. she will kiss you breathless. don’t you know it’s in her blood to take care of you?