This is not me

Trigger Warning: Self-Injury

This chasm is all I feel

This emptiness that just won’t leave

Defines everything I succumb to

Dictates inaction, saps the will to move

Dictates action I subject myself to

Dictates moments that I break and dissolve into

And everything I grasp I try to keep within

I will not call your attention to the cracks in my skin

I will not stop cracking

Do I want you to look, but what if you look away

Do I want you to see what I cannot explain?

Is it silence I seek from the blood and the pain

Or just the company of retards that cannot complain

Or testify to fell deeds of shame

I try to retrace the moment it all fell apart

The restraint, the reason that evades me now

This person, this leech I’ve come to embody

Is only similar in form to past reflections

This person, this flea that I’ve fallen to be

Is not who I am, not who I should be

This person, this silent monster I’ve given free reign

To do as it pleases with my physical being

This monster I birthed, I braided into

Is so very like the person, the being of before

And frequently it fools even itself

Into thinking it’s the same old, same old

Preserved so well

But this monster, this person

With thirsty, sharp teeth

This is not me, this is not me

I am not so fell, I refuse to believe

I can go against everything

I have etched into every last fiber of me

I tell myself I can choose differently

If somebody taught me how to

Somebody other than me

Somebody unavailable, immortal

Not effervescent human like me

I wait for somebody that will never come or come to be

And yet I wait oh so patiently

I tell myself I can do differently

That there doesn’t have to be a next time

And I’ve already thought of, planned out next time

And I’ve already tasted the rush

And no, I am convinced

This is not me, this is not me

I am madness and wildness and reason and all heart

And this is not right, this is not right

This is not me

Intention

Trigger Warning: Self-Injury

Mad, she slammed the door
stomped to the bed and
threw her weight against mute, unyeilding cloth and cotton

Screaming seemed a good idea
smashing things to the floor seemed better
old habits die hard
but if you get older leaving the habits behind,
they come back to you reluctantly
almost never, like abandoned children
who refuse to return to the nest that never was

Her nails were too big
she fished for the nailcutter in the clutter that was her room
found it and forced it on her fingers

If her hands were shaking
if she was careless
if she sneezed suddenly or the room shook by way of providence
but you can't play out the future in your head
and expect manifestations before your eyes
and so, when the nailcutter closed with a snap
the only things that cut were nails

Her shirt was loose, button missing at the top
A safety pin held the cloth together against her chest
she plucked it out

Like swift streams flowing with practiced grace
like little pebbles rolling down a slope
like the invisible lines made by ballet dancers
to recreate them on the plains of her arms
armed with just a tiny, sharp point
a temporary tattoo of red
a permanant one of brown

Afterwards, she replaces the pin,
switches off the light and gets into bed
Her arm is outstretched for all the world to see - unmarred, unmarked