Scarlet Rain

I lie on my bed, rocking back and forth, knees pulled to my chest.

I can't take this any more.

I am going insane.

The walls seem to sway with me, to the beat of my thumping heart. With each breath I take the

window cracks a little bit more. Rain starts to seep into my white, tight room. My breathing

quickens.

I am trapped.

Trapped in this hell hole, left to die.

Tears stream silently down my face. My head pounds. The ticking of the clock is like a sledge

hammer. Each time the second hand moves is a second lost time that I'll never got back. Ever.

My eyes dart around the room, seeing everything and yet, I take in nothing. All I see are blank

images that don't mean anything, don't make sense.

But one image does. Light from the frail, dimming sunset glints in the corner of my eye.

The hard, cruel metal seemed dangerous, at one point. Now it is inviting. The knife calls to me,

telling me that it will ease my pain, that it will make the confusion and turmoil I feel stop. That it

will be the end of all of my troubles, that I'll never have to worry again. That I'll feel better.

I press the pad of my thumb onto the edge of the blade. Slowly, carefully I squeeze the cut, watch

the fresh scarlet blood weep like tears from my thumb. I feel the pain, yet I do not. It has a

numbing effect. It erases the old pain. With each drop of blood that falls from me, so does a

trouble. My anger at my mother, my frustration at my sister. My deep, wrenching sorrow for my

broken life.

I pull up my shirt, exposing my fat stomach. The knife digs deep. Not deep enough to kill, it just

far enough to let me feel the sharp prick of pain. No one will ever see my stomach, so it is the

perfect place to cut. No one will ever know.