Bleed

One day I looked at my wrists and realised the scars were gone.

There was nothing. No trace of them left.
I searched and searched, and yet I found nothing.

It was like it had never happened.

At first I felt a rush of relief.
Finally it was behind me.

At last I needn't hide my wrists with bracelets No more shame.

I could laugh again.

But the moment of bliss passed and I was left with a sickening taste
of disappointment.

Those scars have been an essential part of my being.

A reminder of the cold and shivering body on the ceramic bathroom floor.
A reminder of the human I hide underneath my skin.

I'm not what they think I am.

It seemed almost fun, popping the pills into my eager mouth like bullets into a gun.
Tears streaming down my cheeks were the only sign of the fear rooted deep down inside me, somewhere between my heaving stomach and my sick heart.

I swallowed 18 times, one pill for every year I had lived.
My shoulders were too heavy, sinking me into the mat that felt as soft
as a pillow and smellt of peroxide.

The scars that slept tattoed across my wrists were a constant
reminder of just how desperate I was to WAKE UP.

Instead, my head was numb, and my eyes started to close as the cuts in
my skin bled feebly, their red almost alien against my porcelain white
skin.

Now those scars have disappeared. And I have nothing left to wake me up
again, to push me back onto the path I have stumbled from.

Sometimes I wonder if it should happen all over again. I'm sick of
being stuck in Pause.

At least I know what it's like on the other side of the mirror.