I could make out my reflection in the photo of the New York city skyline that hangs above my desk. My black glasses framing my eyes, the scars on my face, even the slight blue tint of my eyes. For a second my eyes met those of my reflection, then I looked down. I felt embaressed. Embaressed for thinking that maybe I could look even half way decent, like this minimal amount of pride I had in the symetry of my face was a joke. If I were to tell anyone that I looked "decent" they would laugh, or look at me and lie and say that I did, I can't even call them a liar because I'm a liar too, and the worst part is I'm lieing to myself. I drew the x-acto knife across my skin, barly cutting down the top of my left arm, blood slowly pooling at the top of the cut I had made. It was crimson and brilliant, and to others a sign of pain and misery, but for me it was a sign of pain escaping, I pour it out through my cuts. I don't bother trying to wipe the blood from the random papers covering my desk, instead I sit and think of my childhood. I used to be bright, cheery, kind, optomistic. I can't see any of that in me any more, I feel like my body is slowly freezing, turning my heart to ice, spreading through my veins like a disease, slowly turning me to Ice. So every once in a while I need to pour it out, or the last bit of warmth about me will die, and I will die with it.
I trim myself for others, break off bits and pieces so I will fit into the mould of what they want me to be. I don't even recognise myself anymore, its not that my face has changed or my body, but my eyes. They used to be soft, wide, open to the world and what it holds, now they are narrow, cautious, they've turned a steel blue, they are unwavering, and un-empathetic. I don't think anyone else can recognize me now either, I wonder if they have grown cold too, if the night slowly sunk into their soul, or if the light inside them fought it off. One day someone just snubbed out the light inside of me.
