Monster, Monster

I didn't know which was worse. Knowing how I really felt inside and lying about it to everyone, or having to live with that pain at all. Unpacking the last box of the house, I found my first resolution. A box of brand new Red Devil razors, wrapped in clean white pieces of cardboard. I hid the small box in my Betty Boop lunchbox and stuffed it in one of the bathroom drawers. I had always been a huge coward when it came to things like that. When I was eleven, I had cut myself with a plastic straw I modified by slicing the pointed edge in half with a pair of scissors. My sister had been a big star in the film of self-mutilation. She was diagnosed with Bipolar at eleven, and was in and out of hospitals, rehabs, foster care, group homes. The scars on her arms and wrists are hard to cover with make-up. I couldn't imagine myself like that.

I stayed up all night, imagining myself walking in her footsteps. Is this how she felt? is this what she had done? When everyone was asleep, I got out of bed and checked the time. One-twenty-three in the morning. I crept to the bathroom, opened my tin lunchbox and opened the tiny box of razors. Cutting myself was easy. Watching it bleed was easier. Four deep cuts against my wrist, and all I felt was the rush of every single thought in my mind flowing out of me through the blood. I wrapped my wrist in a cool towel, put everything in my lunchbox and went back to bed, sleeping it off.

When i woke up in the morning, I covered my incriminating evidence, the scabs, with a zebra hoodie I'd bought myself as a birthday present the year before. Today would be easier. it had to be.