Red

It's a mess. It's a screaming in your head and a sense of panic too strong to hold down and the feeling of everything going much too fast. Too much too fast. Your mind seems to have gone into overdrive and you've lost all control. Memories are being bullied, forced to the front of your mind. Unwanted tainted memories, corrupted by the mixed and muddled feelings fighting for attention, each rising triumphanty to the top of the pile, taking over the power only to be forced back down by another, stronger contender a second later.

You're sad, you're angry, you're jealous, you're confused, you're nothing but those fucking feelings dashing through you. All those those corrosive emotions take over your mind and your body, all you can see are images of the looming shadows of violence and taunting and hurt. You're shaking and you're crying but you don't notice. You aren't sure where you are, the familiarity of your bedroom lost on your eyes that now only see the demons creating havoc in your head.

Then, a flash of sliver.

The searing pain of the blade slicing through flesh burns out the real pain, the length of the wound the trail of gunpowder guiding you towards the blissful explosion. So you dig and drag,  telling yourself that you're weak, that you can't even deal with your own thoughts, that all you have the courage to do is mutalate. Better self destructuction than the alternative. Seek help, tell someone, put down the blade. No. The simple act of putting words to the madness seems impossibe. How pathetic must you be that through all the madness and weakness and silly guilt you've lost the words that unlock the healing. You've replaced courage with cowardice, strength with weakness, pride with shame. What else do you surrender with your blood?

But the blood, the blood. The blood is the best part. The reward. The gleaming stream of ruby that flows down your forearm and takes a little of you with it.  Releasing some of the pressure, sucking the poison out, like exhaling after holding your breath, waking from a nightmare, crashing through the suface, cutting the noose. The hot satisfaction of the firey pain licking your skin & burning everything else away.

And you can breath. You can gulp in the air, new oxygen that hasn't been through your body, hasn't been tainted by your poison, corrupted by the badness you've been told so often you carry. You can feel it filling your lungs, bringing something new, a little less of you. Spill the blood and make room for something better. Spill the blood and kill a little of the demon. Spill the bood, spill the bood, spill the blood.

Wear each scar like a scarlett letter. Like symbols of  some precious secret. To be respected, feared. Loved. Hidden treasures whose beauty is too much to be understood. Look down, don't meet the eyes that try to break down the walls, guard the beautiful little secret like the princess in the highest tower, weave enchantments, whispers of lies, words of false reassurance around the beauty. Then hide. Find that last empty cave in that fucked up mind, find the deepest, darkest corner and leave the last of yourself, the last fragments of truth and humanity and honesty, leave the last lonely bundle of your worthless self and step out into the new truth. Surrender the little that's left and give up all control to the new inhabitant. You're nothing but a host, your mind isn't yours so who are you? You are just a home to the bitterness, a vessel, a cage, a shell. You are nothing, have nothing, mean nothing. You are only your sadness. 

It's the calm after the storm. Everything is still, silent, the noise drowned out by the blood. It's as if everything in the world has stopped, everything stays completely still except that ruby red stream trickling it's way down your arm. And you can relax. It's a single timeless moment, each second of the sixty stretching itself out leisurly, taking luxury in the abcense of the usual rush. It's like floating. Swimming in a world that's nothing but ocean, no where to go. It's a new start, take a new breath and begin again.

But something sneaks up and tells you you haven't cut deep enough yet, you know there are still bad feeling and bad blood, don't you? A door opens but you don't hear it, you're lost. And you know it's not over but his hands are warm and you are cold. His eyes hold hope and your's only pain. His heart is pure and yours is broken. And he is there and you aren't and yet you can feel that warmth and hope and purity enveloping you and you can feel his arms pulling you into him. And you can hear his heart as he holds your tired, worn out head against his chest. He wraps his scarf gently around your wrist, your escaped red being soaked up into the soft wool.

Your body rises and falls with his chest and suddenly you can feel yourself breathing. You're aware of the air filling your lungs, the single second of panic when they empty and the relief when they fill again. You're heart is beating, you can feel it, it's a little out of sync with his but still they're beating together, creating their own rythm. You can feel his breath on the back of your neck, the strength of his arms around you, the softness of his stomache where you are huddled, closed in.

You begin to unfurl, slowly. Trace a hand over his chest. Realise you can see, step back into reality. You want to look  at him but you're afraid. Will he be ashamed? Disgusted? Sad? That seems the worst. You don't want to disrupt his perfectly crafted lie of an image of you but mostly you don't want to upset him. The idea of him feeling any fragment of what you do makes the blade seem beautiful again.

But you've let him down. So you punish yourself again, deprive yourself of the one thing that you know could comfort you, could help. You close your eyes and you sit up, unravelling the scarf before letting it fall on the drops of blood on the floor. You stand, shaky and unsure, gripping the wall. Take the three steps it takes to reach your bed. Don't open your eyes until you're beneath the covers.

And you hear the door shut.