Jul 2018
She wore her bandaids like badges.
Were they badges of honour or badges of shame?
She fears them pulling up her sleeves, all the way to the shoulders, brushing the neck, for she only scratches there...
So they won't find them.
She wonders time and time again why she does what she does.
'Perhaps I am cursed' she screams out to the world, as if it were a question and not a statement which keeps ringing in her head.
She tries to tell someone, tries to articulate what she means, tries to summon up the courage.
But uncertainty and that throbbing in her shoulder lie in wait, in the form of butterflies in her stomach and a lion purring painfully in her heart.
'Do not roar' she whimpers over and over, 'Please do not say anything' she tells herself, even when she wants to speak.
She must be quiet.
So as not to awaken doubt, so as not to force others to think differently upon her, so as not to let herself be boxed in.
'But what if I want those boxes for protection?' she tries to reason with herself, but stubborness is a disease that reeks of pausing after stubbed toes to see if it is the same feeling.
Is it the same if she hurts herself by accident? Could she have
hurted herself by accident?
'I do not want self harm to write who I am' she cries unnecesarily to the sky, so blue and taunting it twinkles to her, so endless unlike her fraying and drying self.
'Do not harm yourself then' it says, as if it were that easy, as if pain and memories and shame and the need to not think haven't already corrupted her soul.
Why is she shivering?
Why can't she breathe?
'I am possessed' she reassures herself. It is not her fault that she has been taken by a demon she cannot control.
It is not her fault that she is so weak.
She says that she is possessed, not that she feels she is possessed, for she can think of no other reason for her insanity.
'I love you' god calls to her.
She is not sure which god she should pray to, not sure where she
can let her disbelief and absolution lie. How can she know what to believe in when she has surely lost belief in herself.
'Can I give up on science?' she longs to let the non-existence control her life. If only there were rules for her life.
Will they blame her?
In the end she knows they won't. Not the ones who should be listened to anyway.
Yet she continues to torture herself for reasons that are out of her grasp.
Insanity has never been her salvation, but neither has it been her reckoning.
'I am broken' she argues when someone tells her that she should
stop, that her skin is beautiful, that scratching it is only futile.
She realises it is her own conscience.
There is a dark part of her that wishes she would not heal, so she would not have to replace the marks which disappear.
'I am broken' she repeats, wondering if someone is listening to her when she speaks to empty air.
She knows they aren't.
Were they badges of honour or badges of shame?
She fears them pulling up her sleeves, all the way to the shoulders, brushing the neck, for she only scratches there...
So they won't find them.
She wonders time and time again why she does what she does.
'Perhaps I am cursed' she screams out to the world, as if it were a question and not a statement which keeps ringing in her head.
She tries to tell someone, tries to articulate what she means, tries to summon up the courage.
But uncertainty and that throbbing in her shoulder lie in wait, in the form of butterflies in her stomach and a lion purring painfully in her heart.
'Do not roar' she whimpers over and over, 'Please do not say anything' she tells herself, even when she wants to speak.
She must be quiet.
So as not to awaken doubt, so as not to force others to think differently upon her, so as not to let herself be boxed in.
'But what if I want those boxes for protection?' she tries to reason with herself, but stubborness is a disease that reeks of pausing after stubbed toes to see if it is the same feeling.
Is it the same if she hurts herself by accident? Could she have
hurted herself by accident?
'I do not want self harm to write who I am' she cries unnecesarily to the sky, so blue and taunting it twinkles to her, so endless unlike her fraying and drying self.
'Do not harm yourself then' it says, as if it were that easy, as if pain and memories and shame and the need to not think haven't already corrupted her soul.
Why is she shivering?
Why can't she breathe?
'I am possessed' she reassures herself. It is not her fault that she has been taken by a demon she cannot control.
It is not her fault that she is so weak.
She says that she is possessed, not that she feels she is possessed, for she can think of no other reason for her insanity.
'I love you' god calls to her.
She is not sure which god she should pray to, not sure where she
can let her disbelief and absolution lie. How can she know what to believe in when she has surely lost belief in herself.
'Can I give up on science?' she longs to let the non-existence control her life. If only there were rules for her life.
Will they blame her?
In the end she knows they won't. Not the ones who should be listened to anyway.
Yet she continues to torture herself for reasons that are out of her grasp.
Insanity has never been her salvation, but neither has it been her reckoning.
'I am broken' she argues when someone tells her that she should
stop, that her skin is beautiful, that scratching it is only futile.
She realises it is her own conscience.
There is a dark part of her that wishes she would not heal, so she would not have to replace the marks which disappear.
'I am broken' she repeats, wondering if someone is listening to her when she speaks to empty air.
She knows they aren't.
