the worst place to razor in cold weather is your palms-
but it's probably the best place to get caught.

Cutting wasn't about bleeding, or the pain or the control.
this sick ritual I initiated myself to reality with, was purely
masochistic, scarring apple-white flesh with my trusty Bic.

i was so pretty and fresh; youth and innocence radiated from
huge dark green porous eyes. I was so much fun to destroy;
looking back.

Somehow
my beautiful virgin frame
bent and strained-
this stress-test a
cauterized amputation
of my youth
& physical innocence.

Somehow
i took it,
and as my calves and knees and thighs
amassed longer & deeper thrashes
of my sparkling edge.

my right arm became a scoreboard
how many times i wasn't worth
hurting anything but myself-

In my bathtub, dry and naked,
pale and emaciated;
quivering with self-loathing-
(i always watched) as the imaginary line
on my thigh began to sting as red drops
quickly streaming, still warm from life.

The bathroom was always glowing,
freshly white, so standing there,
a bony lonely beauty, naked.
Dripping fresh blood over
crusted cuts - i grimaced-
for my infinite fractal reflection
satisfied me, a wild eyed beauty;
a self-destroyer.

That Lexapro-drugged, misunderstood 15 year old girl
haunts me less now, realizing how strong I am, and have
always been does feel like bleeding clots from a severed artery,
hell-bent on living and doing triage on it's systems.

I shut down and couldn't feel, after my gray-matter
disintegrated from blood loss after a bleeding heart.
the then-unfamiliar numbness set in,
and just to make sure, the naive invincibility of youth
rescued me from overshadowing feelings of morality.

By my sweet 16, no longer pure but still beautiful,
I was the last rose petal on the vine, bracing for a
cold lonely winter of depression , anxiety & recklessness.

It is only now, with David
that true, delightful emotions return,
and the true youth so severed from sensitivity and respect begins to feel a phantom limb of youth returning finally-
the pain of amputation and blind confusion of loss bleed thickly from tender veins,
but the shedding of self-hate and unworthiness from my blood lightens my load exponentially. It's the slow grinding beginning of cogs, blinking away darkness past
that fuels my rebirth into deliciously familiar flesh.