I grabbed her wrist tight, looked at her with what I hoped was a firm but open gaze and refused to let her go. I saw the few tender fresh cuts on her wrist and I squeezed on them with my fingers until she squirmed. She said nothing. I twisted her wrist so that it faced up and roughly yanked her long sleeve upwards, but there was nothing. Nothing but those few lonely shallow lines, no more than scratches. I sighed in disappointment and perhaps disgust.
‘You’re pathetic’ I said in a sad voice, I hoped she would know how much this had hurt me. To my surprise she just laughed, and laughed a shrill hysterical desperate laugh that pierced my ears.
‘Pathetic?’ she asked now holding my eyes with a stare so intense that I felt jealous. She had such passion for life, I couldn’t understand why she would do this.
‘Pathetic’ she repeated with fire in her voice. She freed herself from my hold and stood in front of me, then before I knew what was happening, she was taking off her top and then, her trousers that were discarded like dead skin onto the floor unfolded. I could see no marks, no ‘steal kisses’, her body was clean and slightly too pale. Her stomach hung off of strong muscles and the whispers of cellulite clung about her thighs. Her underwear was matching, like she was expecting to have met a lover today, and not me red and plane. I wondered whether I should be turned on by this display of flesh? Or if I should say something, compliment her? I stayed silent. She moved to undo her bra, I opened my mouth to object. If this was what they called ‘a move‘, my friends had misinformed me as to what ‘a move’ was. But before I could utter a word she glared and warned me to shut up and stay that way. So I watched as first the bra was removed followed to my horror, by her pants. She straightened up, and stood there and I finally understood why she had laughed. It looked almost like she hadn’t taken them off at all. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of small raw angry cuts in the first stages of healing covered every inch of skin that had previously been hidden by her lingerie.
‘I made sure that even if I got changed in front of people they wouldn’t see’ she explained. The tattered skin was red and swollen hideously decorated with small beads of brown scabs as each cut was too shallow to bleed too much.
‘I cut them shallow because they heal quicker that way, and they don’t leave a mark, and it’s a fresh’ she searched for the right word
‘Start’ she finished. But she was wrong, there were a few small, sparsely scattered patches of skin that had escaped her judgment, and there I could see skin unnaturally shiny, draw strangely taught over her fat and discoloured a greyish blue because the blood could not reach the surface through what was obviously thick scar tissue.
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘About a year’ she answered simply, standing patiently allowing me to study her ruined body. She had even used the skin covered by the straps of her bra. Ridged cuts cross hatched their way over her shoulder. And it was just like that, cross hatching. It was as if she had taken the knife and in all of her artistic talent, shaded in her body a hellish scarlet. Her breasts supported many of the deeper gashes, slashes and nicks. Her nipples were indistinguishable through the mess. The tops of her thighs were pitted from were she had picked away scabs to violently and taken flesh with them. The fresher wounds danced just below the mark of her trousers. Glistening sickly in the light with whatever the body excreted along with the blood which had carefully been wiped away. And I thought how easy it would have been to spot them. But no, if she did not want you to see those cuts, you would not see them. It was horrific and it made me sick and terrified of what she was prepared to do to her body. However, at the same time I became morbidly transfixed and fascinated. She seemed unable to do anything ugly. And I suppose then I may have even loved her. It was beautiful, in the way only awful things are. I found then that I wanted to touch her more that I would ever be able to describe.
She gave no further explanation as to why. But after judging that I had had enough time to see what she had to show she climbed back into her clothes, and into the body of the girl who I thought would never cut. Who spoke out so heatedly of how wrong she thought it all to be. She looked at me.
‘The worst thing is when it sticks’. and then her friend walked in and made a great show about finding us alone in her room. She just laughed and nothing changed.
Author notes
i hated putting this in dark, but where else does it belong?
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
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Beautiful.
A very powerful piece, very good. "Whispers of cellulite clung about her thighs" is fantastic description, and you use repitition to great effect-"Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands" and also the power of three is used for extra power. The thing I really like is how calm and blunt the dialogue is, it's matter-of-fact and through its lack of emotion, it has more emotion than anything else could possibly muster. Just the simple honesty to depict such a potent image, it's very well done. And the description just gets better and better when describing the breasts, maturally and impassively done to make fantastic imagery.
I'm not sure how much I like the ending, though. I get that it's important to have the anti-climax, and the "nothing changed" was brilliantly full of despair, but I think the line "then her friend walked in and made a great show about finding us alone in her room" could be better, don't use the phrase "great show"... by reading this I think you can do much better. Oh by the way, the title is excellent.
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oh my god.
this is the most brilliant piece of writing
that I have ever read on allpoetry.com in the four years that I have been on this site.
it is absolutely perfect.
I am more envious of your talent than I have ever been of anyone for any reason.
I am seriously blown away.
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I love the boys character so, so much (actually, I always envisioned it as a girl, but everyone else seems to think it male, so I'll go with that). His emotions are so intense...och, I got a thorough case of the shivers. Haha, and when I saw the title, I was epecting a jovial tale laced with passion.
the passion is here, but the tale is anything but jovial. Ecepting the end, of course. I had to laugh. Actually, I think I was so desperate for something to take my mind off the gruesome image of her body that I grabbed at the humour like a bloody lifeline.
beautiful. (in a really gross way. but not in a bad way, either. ^^)
xxxxxxx
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This reminds me a bit of the writer story in "The Dream Country" - horror that's aesthetically appealing. It actually made me go "ugh" inside when I was reading it, and there aren't many things that have done that. Oh, and I like the way "nothing changed" kind of echoes the way she takes her lingerie off but it doesn't really make much difference to what you can see... If you want to improve it, I would say build up the (I assume) boy's character, and describe how the girl looks apart from the scars. That would make give the rest more impact, I think.
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A gripping tale, I confess I read the end line after I'd covered about half of your writing! I did find, however, the word skin too repetitive towards the middle of the story. I understand it's probably the most important term in your story but kept popping up so often I tried to avoid reading it. Your descriptive language, by the way, is very good, with well placed adjectives that don't distract the reader and few metaphors which makes the story more real and straightforward.
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Andy Miles
thankyou for the critisism.
yes i know how annoying it is when a writer puts the same word in too often. but like the word eyes when talking about looking someone in the eyes, talking about skin without having to use the word is a hard task, im going to re-read and see if i can change anything.
thankyou again
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BRILLIANT
Just the other day, I saw a young girl with long sleeves on, and it's ninety degree's here. She was lighting a cigarette and I saw her loose sleeve slide up her stark white arm. That's when I saw the marks from her cuttings. It's the first time I ever saw this. I wanted to grab her and pray with her. Your story is quite awesome, and will smack readers right upside the head. I loved every word!
POETDONTKNOWIT
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fun read!!!!!
Perhaps i shouldnt find this so amusing because of the subject matter but it did have a giggle inticing irony or something to it and the friend coming in the room thing was great comic relief. It was a very entertaining read however you look at it. I was interested the entire time. It reminds me of a piece of writing from a Stephen king book or some such thing where a little taste of strange is about to lead to the revelation of some deeper evil.
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This has easily captured my attention. I need more than just this little excerpt now. It follows adult as well as dark.
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Wow. This is quite some story that you have written here.
I'm not sure what to say. I can see what you mean about morbid fascination because I got all caught up into it too and read all the way to the end. I don't know if you made this up or if it's based on something that actually happened but you did a really great job on not too much unnecessary background but just talking about that scene. I still had a feel about the past and the present without you having to say too much. You really impressed me.
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awesome short story
I grabbed her wrist tight, looked at her with what I hoped was a firm but open gaze and refused to let her go. I saw the few tender fresh cuts on her wrist and I squeezed on them with my fingers until she squirmed. She said nothing. I twisted her wrist so that it faced up and roughly yanked her long sleeve upwards, but there was nothing. Nothing but those few lonely shallow lines, no more than scratches. I sighed in disappointment and perhaps disgust.
‘You’re pathetic’ I said in a sad voice, I hoped she would know how much this had hurt me. To my surprise she just laughed, and laughed a shrill hysterical desperate laugh that pierced my ears.
‘Pathetic?’ she asked now holding my eyes with a stare so intense that I felt jealous. She had such passion for life, I couldn’t understand why she would do this.
‘Pathetic’ she repeated with fire in her voice. She freed herself from my hold and stood in front of me, then before I knew what was happening, she was taking off her top and then, her trousers that were discarded like dead skin onto the floor unfolded. I could see no marks, no ‘steal kisses’, her body was clean and slightly too pale. Her stomach hung off of strong muscles and the whispers of cellulite clung about her thighs. Her underwear was matching, like she was expecting to have met a lover today, and not me red and plane. I wondered whether I should be turned on by this display of flesh? Or if I should say something, compliment her? I stayed silent. She moved to undo her bra, I opened my mouth to object. If this was what they called ‘a move‘, my friends had misinformed me as to what ‘a move’ was. But before I could utter a word she glared and warned me to shut up and stay that way. So I watched as first the bra was removed followed to my horror, by her pants. She straightened up, and stood there and I finally understood why she had laughed. It looked almost like she hadn’t taken them off at all. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of small raw angry cuts in the first stages of healing covered every inch of skin that had previously been hidden by her lingerie.
‘I made sure that even if I got changed in front of people they wouldn’t see’ she explained. The tattered skin was red and swollen hideously decorated with small beads of brown scabs as each cut was too shallow to bleed too much.
‘I cut them shallow because they heal quicker that way, and they don’t leave a mark, and it’s a fresh’ she searched for the right word
‘Start’ she finished. But she was wrong, there were a few small, sparsely scattered patches of skin that had escaped her judgment, and there I could see skin unnaturally shiny, draw strangely taught over her fat and discoloured a greyish blue because the blood could not reach the surface through what was obviously thick scar tissue.
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘About a year’ she answered simply, standing patiently allowing me to study her ruined body. She had even used the skin covered by the straps of her bra. Ridged cuts cross hatched their way over her shoulder. And it was just like that, cross hatching. It was as if she had taken the knife and in all of her artistic talent, shaded in her body a hellish scarlet. Her breasts supported many of the deeper gashes, slashes and nicks. Her nipples were indistinguishable through the mess. The tops of her thighs were pitted from were she had picked away scabs to violently and taken flesh with them. The fresher wounds danced just below the mark of her trousers. Glistening sickly in the light with whatever the body excreted along with the blood which had carefully been wiped away. And I thought how easy it would have been to spot them. But no, if she did not want you to see those cuts, you would not see them. It was horrific and it made me sick and terrified of what she was prepared to do to her body. However, at the same time I became morbidly transfixed and fascinated. She seemed unable to do anything ugly. And I suppose then I may have even loved her. It was beautiful, in the way only awful things are. I found then that I wanted to touch her more that I would ever be able to describe.
She gave no further explanation as to why. But after judging that I had had enough time to see what she had to show she climbed back into her clothes, and into the body of the girl who I thought would never cut. Who spoke out so heatedly of how wrong she thought it all to be. She looked at me.
‘The worst thing is when it sticks’. and then her friend walked in and made a great show about finding us alone in her room. She just laughed and nothing changed.
I love this. Amazing write. -
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Angel-of-Darkness15
thankyou very much for your comment, but i think next time if you could comment with your own thoughts rather than just copy and paste what i have already written, (i am well awear of what is in this piece of writing and dont really aprichiate it when people do this just to get points.) it would be alot more constructive. i would aprichiate just a simple 'i like this' more than what is above. but thankyou again for taking the time to read my work.
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I love that, the way he's almost disappointed by the fact that she hasn't cut any more, that he doesn't see it to really be a problem at the beginning.
You know what I think of the story, and I don't know if I could begin to explain what it makes me feel, but you must know that the anti-climax at the end is brilliant, the last line. 'Nothing changed' is just this amazingly powerful, horribly empty phrase, and it's the perfect ending.
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