I can taste the blood, it is clear, runs onto my tongue and I have not yet cut. Have not cut for quite a long time actually,l but we always remember the taste, for it is always associated with that drawn out feeling. is it good or bad, that feeling? I don't even know. or know if I wil ever know in my lifetime. My friend cries moments away from me but I cannot even feel pity for her. Oh, in normal times I would be at her side giving night and day to wipe her worries from a fragile memory. I just sit here and I know, it probably seems that I'm being cold because I'm not group huddling or bawling my eyes out with the other girls or hugging around. I refuse to cry, I refuse to move. Hell even if she looks at me, straight and expectantly, does she fucking realize everyone's situation? On her part, she's her lovely innocense, yet only weeks or a month ago or so was she the one sittnig in an overly large yellow sofa, face to face with the head nurse, school shrink (God help me) and (best of all) the deans? No, not that I last recall. Do not recall that at midnight she was sitting in that damned waiting room studying every curve and twist of a dingy armchair just to hold back the tears and destroy time until her mother came to pick her up. Or was it her that would quickly, always smiling, drag that bleeding pin against her ripped skin, tearing the pretty flesh into shreds of gentle release... Oh yes, back to that. I'm staring at a pin - but it is not even there. It dances before my eyes, tickles at the tips of my fingers, and mocking me with all the power that few could expect from that simple little tool. I have only wanted to make my release twice since the last time, which being quite a while ago is rather impressive for me. And how much stronger this time is! Oh I feel like I could fill a glass with my life, perhaps to sip at it slowly, savouring its taste and memory. I even let my mind caress the idea, walking calmly over to my corner and I do not see a new line streak into existance, but my last, the one before, all my past vents of hell bursting forth and dripping sweetly down my leg and arm, staining the inviolate parts of my skin with no remorse in its colour, red. So many options there are! I could bottle the reminiscent drops like perfume to stash away and comfort me in its sly deceitful ways. Tasting life from the cut itself was always a favorite, and coloring gently innocent puffs of tissue - well, I've had bad experiences with that one... And in the end, it doesn't even matter.
And staring off into this petit hotel room with the two others. I can do nothing. I know not truths nor lies; future present past it blurs and waits a moment or two for my eyes to focus on it, but narrowing my view it has already fleeted, changed. I stop searching and close my eyes. It's not worth it, just as everything else tainted by this moment.
© 2002 Heather Parker
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