D R O W N

when pens become knives

it's funny how i saw you as a box.
a nice cardboard box to hide behind for a while. that's what you were. you were my hiding place. somewhere i could pretend troubles didn't exist.

i shut my eyes against the dark and thought that if i couldn't see it; it couldn't see me.

it was the start of high school and i didn't know who i was.
i still don't.

i was young, naïve and reckless. too worried about status and blending in to care about mental health. too worried about others to worry for myself.

that's how i liked it. others were always the best distraction to my silent desperation for help.

you came into my life at exactly the wrong time. it was the worst idea to befriend you. or at least, let you snatch me up as a friend.

you were perfect and pretty and smart. but you were so ignorant it made me laugh. too wrapped up in your accomplishments to recognise the failures around you.

like when you tossed your blond hair over your shoulder and smiled that pitying smile.
that smile told it all. those green eyes shimmered with self importance.
it crawled into my ears whispering;
i am so sorry you aren't like me. oh lord, i'm such a saint for being friends with you!

that was the year i started drawing on my skin. the backs of my hands and insides of my arms.
it was stress relief. it was more hiding. it was pain, but it was poetry too.
not enough, though. it was never quite enough.

we fought a lot. just fights about nothing important. i think i was bored with you. fed up with your pettiness. you didn't realise.
you never realised much.

do you remember that time when you sat and cried after i shouted that i didn't care about your test results?
we both knew i could barely stand you at this point.
do you remember the time i ditched you at lunch to wander behind the classrooms by myself?
do you remember the time i started to cry for no reason after school?
do you remember the time when i came with cuts on my arm and had a whole story about a cat scratching me?
you wouldn't remember that one because i never had to use the excuse. you didn't ask. you weren't very observant. it was good.

next year was when pens gradually became knives.
it was pain, but it was poetry too.
less cat attacks, more sobbing at night over my blood on the sheets.

i finally rid myself of you, becoming slowly more distant seemed to do the trick.
it wasn't soon enough. you had already wasted two years of my life. but it wasn't like i was going to do anything else with it.