Idle Hands: Portrait in Red

I pack my cigarettes hard against my desk, when I think that they are sufficiently packed, I tear the cellophane and flip the box top open. I tear the front and back foil pieces and flip three cigarettes up. I sometimes get strange looks when I do that, sometimes I explain, sometimes

I just say it's a habit. A habit just like my smoking habit. Something for my hands to do in idle times when I'm alone with my thoughts. Sometimes I wish that I could quit, I really wish that I could, but its so hard. The real stickler is that I enjoy it. I enjoy the sensation of placing an unlit cigarette between my lips and flicking my lighter and lighting it. Feeling the first intake of smoke envelopes my mouth and down into my lungs. And the calm that follows. I stare at the curling smoke from my cigarette and reflect.

I glance down at the scars on my wrists from my failed attempts to kill myself. I finger most prominent of them, the one that almost worked. I had filled my bathtub with cold water and settled myself, letting the water numb me. I grasped the exacto knife and sliced it cleanly through my flesh. My hot blood burning my ice-cold skin. I even did it the right way, going from my wrist to my elbow. More surface area to my veins that way. I felt the world go hazy and started slipping down the slick tile walls. The cold water shocked my face, I welcomed it; taking deep breathes of the water. I heard voices, I willed them to go away, they didn't. The door burst open, and there was my landlord and a prospective renter. I don't remember what happened next, but apparently he called an ambulance, and they took me to the hospital. And another nice stay in the psych ward. The doctors later told me that five more minutes and I would have been dead. Five more minutes and I would have had the warm, dark oblivion surrounding me permanently. It is sad when the doctor calls your parents and tells them that you tried to kill yourself, and they don't care.

I know that my mother just wanted to get back to her perfect husband and perfect new family. She didn't need me, the fuck up, to interfere with her life. My father would have cared before the drugs and booze got him. Now all he cares about is getting his next fix.

Stifling a sob, I come back to the present. My cigarette is only about half-done. I hold the burning ember close to my skin and feel the heat radiate off it. I lower it and feel the searing pain as I burn myself. After a few seconds I pull it back and admire the round burn there. It's already puffing up and turning an angry red color. I put the cigarette down on my skin again, right next to the burn. I continue this until I have a perfect circle of burns. I idly play with them, enjoying the pain that playing with them causes. It is the only ecstasy that I know.