Trigger Warning: self-harm, blood, death, suicide
These are not monsters.
There are no monsters here.
These feel like love,
and when they creep inside you
it's like something once missing
is finally coming home.
How could a monster make such
pretty pictures?
Pretty pictures,
pretty ****** pictures,
they look like everything
that is in this universe is bleeding,
like rivers of red
and pumping veins
and all I've thought about for the past three days
is my own blood leaking from my wrists
and these monsters (not monsters)
can make you feel it too.

You'll learn to make jokes about why
there's a scratch on your thigh
and why you won't be caught dead
in anything but head-to-toe clothing.
Lifting the perfectly wrapped blades
with delicate red-stained fingers
to hesitant perfect skin
and when the jokes get too cumbersome,
and feel too much like a cry for help,
like speaking up, like letting go,
learn to put an end to words,
forget what speaking is and
by the end of 6th grade
you'll know every spot in your house
where no one will look for you
blood-dripping stash.

The monsters (not monsters)
will share their secrets.
You'll learn that crayon-colored pencil sharpeners,
when applied pressure turn into a weapon
and can be easily hidden in a box of mints
the time every night when you receed into your mind
feels like a nightmare and a daydream
and you can slip
for only the cost of the rest of your life spent
worshipping
the biting feeling of metal in skin
searching up picture and picture
and dead girl and picture
you, too, can spend the rest of the day
smelling of blood leaking down
your wrists.

Go, they'll say,
searching with sure hands, hastily covered wrists-
memorize the lines of your veins
and all the lies you could tell
spend hours in the bathroom
counting cuts
fifty
one hundred
two hundred
three.
Suddenly your skin swells and the blood bleeds
the color of spilled wine
you will learn to avoid everyone
because people mean questions
you will spend your birthday
fantasizing about burying
your blades into your throat
until your heart stops.

The not-monsters
will feed you your first hospitalization,
and your second, and your seventh.
They will leave your once peaceful skin
covered in a mass of scars,
just for you.

And when your life gets too weak,
and your mind starts to crumble,
but where blades break skin
galaxies will implode.
An entire universe will force
itself from your wounds
pushing flesh and veins out of your way
and you'll faint
but you'll be happy
because at least you're not numb
you'll decompose
until you cannot be differentiated
from all the skeletons that live in your closet.
Don't you wish you could die
don't you wish you could have that control
don't you wish you could make your dad cry
because he just doesn't get why you'd do this
you don't get why you do this
you're smart but you just googled
how many ounces of blood can you lose
before you pass out
the horrible girls
horrible bleeding girls
horrible dying girls
horrible dead girls
the parasite can be restrained but not destroyed.
But no matter.
It's a beautiful thing to be made of scars
the picture of your ****** arms in the bathroom
was worth it.