and it was then that I realised that I didn't actually like anyone anymore. I had no desire to see or talk to anyone. I didn't want to go out, or socialise, or to smoke pot with a bunch of other losers, or to sit around and kiss as many people as possible, or to play exhausted football in the park until the sun went down, or to make a line of bobbing beer cans in the star-studded river and perpetuate the illusion that this is what matters, this is what life's all about. I held no love in my heart for my friends, my household, and certainly not myself. I knew with absolute conviction that the best action I could take for all concerned was to wrap myself around my throbbing ache, and watch the luminous digits slowly blinking over on my machine. A stubborn refusal to accept this made me force myself over the coming months to try everything I knew to make it better, but nothing worked. And then it got colder again. Finally, that winter, I wrote a poem about snow and a girl who wanted a pony while sat on my parents' bed, and cut my left arm open from wrist to elbow. The cut wasn't quite straight, it leapt a little where it ran over a tendon, but overall I was quite pleased with it.
