Chasing the Blood

I tapped away at the keys. Tap- tap- tap… writing always cleared my head when I had something to write about. No, not when I had something to write about, but when the voices in my head became so loud, they demanded to be heard. Something to deal with, letting the white of the paper lend ear to insanity. It helped me avoid my addiction or at least it prolonged the inevitable.

The words splattering across the paper painted an almost romantic image of my derangement. I’d paint images of bright red blood, running in rivulets down the beautiful alabaster skin of the caged princess. Her tears would glisten like diamonds, her hair would cascade down her supple curves. A gold engraved knife would fall against the cold stone floor, sound like chimes calling her savior.

The truth fell far short of romantic. As the crowd cleared out and the clock ticked down there was no romantic beauty… No princess to save… No glistening tear, sparkling on my cheek… Just the few paces to my bathroom, a mere step in the small, dated apartment. I’d drop my ill-fitting, ill fashioned clothing on the floor. Avoiding looking in the mirror, knowing the girl staring back was always just too much or just too little. My overly muscular legs were too bulky. My waist, although it was trim, was centered on a torso that was so short it was impossible to be model skinny. My chest was a bit too small, leaving me even more bottom heavy. My hair was far too short. I was cute but not beautiful. I was too hard and too bold. I never cried, I was cold, logical, and calculated. No gold engraved handled knife, just a plain shaver, which my long skinny fingers deftly disassembled and reassembled.

I would remove one blade, place it on my pale flesh along my upper thigh and slice it open. There was bright red blood, but blood in real life isn’t romantic. It’s sticky, thick, odorous. As I pressed it between my fingers I would fade away into the darkness and she would come. She would carefully roll it between her fingers until the droplets would stop pooling up and then she would draw another thin line. Each line like grain of rice removed from a scale. The scale that measured how far I had been pushed beyond the ability to cope. How my grades weighed heavily on my mind, my divorce crowning my failure, my casual partners clashing with my moral compass, my so-called friends and the whispers behind my back, the fights with my family, slice, slice, slice, slice, slice, down her thigh. Stopping sometimes at 7, or going beyond into sets of 7. 7 on the right thigh, 7 on the left, 7 on her back, 7 on her chest, 7 on the top of each foot, until she had so many marks dripping crimson that the rivulets of blood tinted the water. It ran streaked with red as it fled to the drain. Then her breathing would grow ragged, until the cold calculating demeanor gave way to broken gasping sobs. I would have snot and blood running down my face and chest. I would break completely, consumed by the insanity of it all. Until I could feel the weight lift off my heavy shoulders. And sometimes, it would be so much that I would heave up bile… disgusted with myself, my sobs would break into silent derisive laughter. I would turn the water scalding hot and let it pour over my sliced flesh. The heat would burn away the emotion. Burn away the anger toward myself, disgust toward my addiction, and hatred that I now had the strength to silently, cheerfully face another day. Feigning that I had it all together.

The tapping on the keyboard dwindled as the last member of the party said a tired goodbye. My roommate glanced over my poem, the imagery of the bleeding rose, a beautiful princess, everything I wasn’t. He smiled, “always dark, but ever beautiful.” He kissed my cheek and went to his bedroom. I stood up, as cold as ice, numb to the world, the scales weighted with the voices in my mind. I slid silently into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I could feel her image in the mirror. As I stepped into the water, I slid to the floor of the tub. Razor blade in hand, she would laugh, and so the insanity began.