Emanate

She hears no words, only noise. The noise fills her ears with swirls and daggers in and around her brain. It spirals inside ensuring the all-encompassing feeling of emptiness. She is eleven years old and the voices of everyone she knows are breaking her, barking and yelping, a constant confusion of chattering, chilling gasps. She is never as perfect as she should be. Angry and fearful she bites down into her own pale, puffy flesh. Her bedroom is dark, her mood is dark, she sees nothing but that of a slither of light shining in, from underneath the door.
Her family sleep soundly in surrounding bedrooms, purring like comforted kittens, warm and safe. It is a school day tomorrow, a day where Sophia shall try to be more perfect than today and attempt to appear as coherent and cooperative with life as her peers. She feels pressure and confusion arising from within and stifles a scream whilst trying desperately not to tear down the walls that hold her sanctuary. Reaching down the side of her bed her fingers gently and mindlessly graze the abundance of useless objects resting on the surrounding floor. She is frantic as she grabs hold of her pencil case and pulls it close to her rising chest. Flicking on the lamp, she is confused and tense. She sits cross-legged on the bed and opens the pencil case to carefully pull out a small familiar cellophane pouch.
The voices scream at her in tones she can only refuse to accept. Harsh and loud they tell penetrate her thoughts of how worthless she is, worthless and detestably dirty. She brings out a small, sharp silver blade from the cellophane pouch and admires it close to her young flawless face. It seems to be calling for her, calling for her to become its friend and is glad to have been unwrapped. Aloud, but in her smallest whisper, she utters “I know what you want.”
The sound of her own voice hushes those inside but the pressure is getting worse, growing, churning, and ripping her innocence apart. Lying down atop the duvet, still clinging to her friend, she lifts up her pyjama top. The sight makes her gasp as she sees the body of a girl, flat, smooth chest and gnarly protruding ribs. She ponders for a moment and wonders if this childlike body truly belongs to this ancient wreck of and eleven year-old. She had almost forgotten that she had a body; in fact, she had not looked at it for years.
The anger built her up and took her to a place far more adult than she should ever know. She thinks about sex, erections, and dirty magazines, things she does not yet know the name of and of course, she remembers that she is a part of it all. Her lack of breasts and womanly curves becomes apparent to herself and she remembers that perhaps she is still a child. With this thought waltzing in and out of her understanding, she begins to run the blade across her chest. She feels a complete lack of pain yet tear droplets escape from her tired eyes. Blood dribbles away from her first self-induced injury, trickling and forming a pool in her hollow chest. It pleases her to see it, confirming her worries of being a robot or a misinterpretation of life. She will do it again, five times in succession that night and she presses down harder each time.
Blood, deep red child blood emanates from her wounds in volumes that begin to trouble her young soul. She feels relieved, alive and the pressure inside evens out, released somehow. On the bed, she stares in awe at the slashes in her once perfect skin. Running her fingers over the gashes, she wonders if she is an alien or perhaps if it were an alien that created these canals of blood that reign on her chest. She concludes that she is simply an object, much like the women in the dirty magazines.
“Do with me what you please” she thinks to herself, “but I promise you I will not feel.”