One hundred times. One hundred cuts and one hundred places I have bled in the past few months. I knew it was a problem when I would do twenty or so at a time some nights. I don't know how many it actually was, but I do know it was over one hundred at some point. I just like to say one hundred because it makes me forget that there was a few at least that escaped my mind. I never meant to count them, but I ended up staring at them while showering, and counted and recounted because I was shocked. I was shocked that once I came out of autopilot that I could do that to myself, and swore, with my subconscious crossing metaphorical fingers, that I would never do it again. And of course a few nights later I would silently get up after crying and make more to run my fingers over the next morning. I realized how hard I pushed one day when I noticed that some of them were a month old and they still were able to bleed if you scratched them. So I started on the other leg that night and I made the new ones lighter, and the more recent ones are barely visible now. none of them bleed now, and I have been trying hard to not go back. I still have the shiny piece of metal in my bag still, but I haven't used it. I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to be stronger. But they also made me feel numb for a second as all the noise in my head went away. That the static sounds that rang through my ears like the buzzing of a million bees were muted, and I was able to think clearly. I don't do well with true silence, but that type of silence is something I have needed for a long time. And for those few minutes of watching the blood flow, it was like the sound drained out of my head and through those cuts, exiting my body in that crimson stream, that was turned into one hundred. One hundred escapes from my head. One hundred lines that helped deny what I truly wanted for one more day. One hundred mistakes, but also one hundred lessons.
