Little Girl, Don't Look So Blue

Comparing Scars

What would you do if, at age 12, you were already trying as hard as you can to keep your friends from killing themselves? If it was your first year in middle school, but instead of making new friends, you were crying everynight to the old ones, telling them not to take the knife in their hands?

I guess at first, I tried to block it out. I remember the first day, where my friend had told me, "I just need the butcher knife and I'm set. One, two, three slices, the blood dripping down my arm, it all feels so fantastic!"

When all of them started to do it, it killed me. The worst was when they would do it in school, slicing their arms brutally with pencils and paper and whatever they could get their hands on. It killed me.

The day that I was most horrified is when my friend came up to me sobbing. She raised her neck and sobbed, "Is there a scar? Is there?" Blood ran down her fingers and the knife in her hands.

"No," I whispered. "There isn't a scar."

But I guess there was emotionally. Is that what they were doing? Emotionally comparing scars? It wasn't fair to me! It wasn't fair!

And it lasted throughout middleschool. Now, in highschool, I am proud to say that two of my friends have quit. However, one of them has not.

During lunch one day, she took out a sharpened pair of scissors and held it to her forearm. With a smile, she deftly sliced her skin over and over again until the blood ran freely, even spattered onto the table. We drew back in disgust, and one of the girls reached out towards the scissors and my friend, in a fit of spasmodic insanity, sliced the girl's wrist.

I found her later that day with her wrists out and said without looking up, "Comparing scars..."

Comparing scars...