crashed

I was never one for words,
They seemed to be too much effort;
A waste of energy and certainly
Used with no effect.

So I stayed silent, with words
Bogging down my brain, but still never
Expressing myself. The way people treated
Me just proved that they didn’t care how I felt,
Let alone what I did to myself.

So one night I found a razor in the kitchen
A catalyst for my experiment with pain.
It felt like I tore a piece of myself away
While I bled onto the counter;
But it was something new and for a while,
All my problems disappeared with the
Loss of blood.
It was like stepping onto a train with a
Ticket that said “anywhere but here.”
And at the moment I gave the blade my
Ticket and stepped aboard.

And after that night I began to feel a
Constant urge to find that razor blade once more.
I yearned to experience that natural high
Again, because when I cut the pain
And hurt fell down to the floor.

I still didn’t tell anyone about my
Brand new hobby. The constant jokes about
“Fucking emo kids” were threats to my
Sanity, and that was something I didn’t want to lose.
Rolling up my sleeves or even showing
People the poetry and prose I wrote was like
A one way ticket to the hospital psychiatric ward.
What would people think of me then?

The addiction I cherished circled my head
Nonstop. Every thought provoked another
Urge and soon I found myself
Succumbing to my ever-present need day by day.
The doctors called it self harm.
But I didn’t think it deserved a name at all.

I had trapped myself in a vicious circle;
The pain insisted like a
Little child tugging my sleeve, that I cut.
Cutting created more pain, and as I
Distanced myself from the world around me,
I could not help but give in to the misery
And cut again.

I went through my life like that, in a
Daze of some type, but completely
Conscious as the same time.
I felt as if I was on a train, gradually picking up
Speed until everything blended together.
I absorbed the beauty of the world around me,
(If it was all real or imagined, I could not say)
Letting the colors intensify as the pain did likewise.
It all seemed so natural, and I was ready to
Drop dead if it meant I could experience more
Of the beauty my own blood brought to me.

One day my mother picked up the telephone.
“Hello? Yes. I don’t think so. I haven’t noticed
Anything weird about her lately. Okay. Yes. Goodbye.”
That was the end of that for months and months.
But I didn’t realize my mother never forgot
That dreaded conversation.

Finally my mother confronted me about it.
(I was talking about scar tattoos)
In too much detail, she told me about her conversation
With my friend’s mother. Her mother called my
Dearest Mumsy and exposed my deepest darkest secret.
My speeding train crashed to a halt and
Slid off the tracks. Apparently,
I was stuck there.

And all she said after her story was
“Why would you do something like that?”
And, crawling past the wreckage and debris,
I looked her in her tear-filled eyes.
A slow realization crept over me and
(Maybe too) consciously I replied
“I don’t know.”

Because the reason for my actions was
Lost that night I first found the razor and
Bled away my pain