Crimson

Distractions

        Distractions and coping skills are like Band-Aids. They take care of the problem for the time being, but it doesn’t really fix it. My wrists itched. I looked outside to see the sun rising. It felt like the darkness wouldn’t go away. I should shower.

        I grabbed some clothes and a towel and headed towards the bathroom. When I locked the door behind me, I already had the routine in my head. I hung my towel up and dropped my clothes on the floor. I turned on the shower so that cold water was running and I went to the cabinet and lifted a broken piece of wood in the back corner and took out my blade.

        I undressed and threw my dirty clothes in the hamper. I sat down on the toilet and dug into my upper arm deeper than ever. Then I did it again. And again. And I loved it.

        Each time I dug in a little deeper until I blacked out.

        I was in the shower. The steaming hot water not only burned my skin, but it seared my wounds as they bled heavily. I didn’t want to look down at them because I knew they were bad and I only black out when I lose control. I didn’t look at anything, but the wall while I scrubbed myself. When I was finally done I had to look. I turned off the water and grabbed my towel, making my arms bleed more.

        Good thing I only use a red towel. I wrapped the towel around my waist and pulled the curtain back cautiously. There was blood all over the floor and in the sink, and bloody toilet paper everywhere. My blade had bloody finger prints on it and I looked down at my body to find my stomach covered in cuts that go up over my collarbones and onto my upper arms and all the way down to my wrists.

        My upper arms had four or five big gashes. The skin was missing and didn’t want to touch. I quickly got the superglue out and closed the bad wounds that needed stitches and basically covered myself in polysporin. Then I bandaged as many as I could. My upper body was warm and swollen, stinging a bit, but the pain was bittersweet. The scars were going to be vast colored and sizes.

        I find it all quite beautiful, really. The way our natural instincts are to protect ourselves, but yet I choose to destroy myself. How hurting myself brings the relief that fighting the pain only makes everything worse. I guess we just- give up at some point. After that it gets hard to care again. It gets hard to breathe and speak, or even live.

        I know that there are adults with scars like mine that have faded away, but these people are so rare. Either we were happier back then or we just gave up completely. As I dressed myself, I smiled for the sweet high freedom I felt. I looked down at what I was wearing in the mirror to see my black hoodie shirt and grey skinny jeans.

        My body isn’t all muscle. It looks like I have no muscle, but I don’t have a beer belly either. I have arm muscles though. My stomach is fairly flat, but sometimes I get discouraged by my figure so, I try to hide it. I combed my hair down and brushed my teeth quickly before cleaning up my mess.

        When I cleaned up I grabbed a trash bag for all the band- aid wrappers, toilet paper, and bloody rags. I carried it out to the trash can on the curb and ran over to our metal mail box to sift through the mail.

        Fallon Grey

       131 Timberwood Grove

       From:

       Rachel Davis

       No address. Just a name. A name I recognized. Rachel Davis is my birth mother. My asshole father made her give me his last name instead of hers and not long after I was born did she disappear. I took it and found my report card. What does my mother have to say to me after all these years? I headed back inside and sat down at the kitchen table to open my report card first.