You Must Remember

Do you remember that time? You must remember. It was the time you were looking in the mirror and stroking your fingers over your bald scalp, gently dragging your short nails across the spongy skin. Then you dig your nails in deeper, transfixed by what you see through the mirror as the skin peels away from your scalp and, in strips like smoked rashers of bacon, you lay out the top layer of skin from your head and smirk at your worried expression. You try to reason it out, excuse it, but it happens and you have to live with it. Live with the warning you ignored. Do you remember what you do next? When you take a serrated blade and draw pretty pictures across your chest of former glories and future challenges? Do you remember when you stop allowing the status quo? Not just blindly, but completely. When you stand in that line and refuse to wait your turn? When the fog clears and your frayed ends of sanity snap? Do you remember the colour across the tiled floor as you knock down someone's milk and then tear through the three people in front of you with your bare hands? You don't stop there, do you? No. You make a point. Do you remember when you strip them all bare? First of their clothes and dignity, and then of their skin and humanity. Do you remember when we were young, before life played back in sepia?