Sunshine

I thought once that I should kill myself. It was on a Wednesday in January; and I nearly did it. I got as far as running a razor knife across the skin on top of my wrists. I wanted to see how red my blood would be and how easily my skin tore. I was inexperienced in self-inflicted wounds. It took a few tries before I could draw blood – I had pressed too lightly at first – but with steady determination, small brooks of blood were soon seeping up through the ripped skin and bubbling on top like so many small red beads. I had, in the excitement, been unconscious of the pattern that my strokes were taking. As I lay calmly watching the blood burst forth, I realized that I had cut a large X on my left wrist. I turned my wrist over and looked at its smooth white underside. I could see the blue-purple veins cutting across in diagonal shoots and branching upwards into my palm. I looked at the few spare freckles that seemed to have wandered there by mistake. I took the knife in my hand and placed it above my creamy skin. I felt the back of my wrist stinging with the pins and needles of open air on a fresh wound. My heart drummed inside of my head. I felt blood surging through every part of me – rushing with the quick intensity of adrenaline and pain. I hovered, indecisive, for some time until the blood on the X had dried and crusted over. I had lost my mind. I was a liar. But worst of all, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t end it. There was something in my way. I screamed and sobbed and pulled my hair at my coward life. A few easy cuts and I would end. I would slumber and sleep. No more static life, foreign family. It would be over, done. But invisible strings were holding me back, and I couldn't do it.

On Thursday, Friday, Saturday I stared at my wrist. The X raised and scabbed above my winter white skin. It was addictive to touch. It was a neon sign with blinding lights. I covered it with watches, with bangles, with shirts, with tears but it stayed. I became afraid of it. The words of it pulsed and pounded in the back of my mind like drips from a broken faucet. Sick. Sick. Sick. It infected me. I was sick and it was sick. Every knife was that knife, so I hid them all. Suspicious eyes followed me, seeing my X. It was the brand of a sad girl.