“sick” by @merkley-mrack || 10th December, 2016
I sit alone.
The room is cold.
I pick apart my scabbed upper arm
like bloodied pith from a tangerine.
I am methodical. I am driven.
I feel each pinch.
I grab myself and pull my limb into view, and
excoriate.
I know my eyes are wide, because the whole point of this is to really look.
I need to smoothen my skin.
I dig my nails in.
Each time I start this horrid ritual,
I know that I will only succeed in making me blotchy, scarred, itching and sickeningly ugly.
I will look at my work,
and then lie down to sleep, feeling empty.
I crave the emptiness. If I go too far, or stop too early, I feel that I did something wrong.
If I do well, I know that I deserved it. It is sick.
At this point I will tell you that I tried to write about it before,
but it is so hard to explain.
I am more concentrated than I am at any other time.
The pressure comforts me.
Mama used to do it for me,
I used to scream.
It is calming.
Why?
Why does it feel like adding these tiny scars to my whole arm
will make me clean?
Sometimes I am sitting together,
and if I’m distracted, I begin work on my scalp.
Grating. Four nails raking through my hair.
I pull at the drying scab and pluck it out, many times over.
I litter the pith all over,
and it is bitter like the real thing.
I dream.
If I woke up one day - clean,
Perhaps,
and I hesitate to say this, but I must,
I think I would want to die.
I would have nowhere to turn!
Nothing to do when I can’t express the absolute verbal flaying I give myself,
all in my head,
because if I looked into the mirror I would be perfect.
If I ran my hand over my shoulders and down my arms, I would be baby-like.
A boiled egg person, with no purchase, slippery even, and no holes to dig into.
What then? Do I bang my head against the wall?
Crack my fingers one by one.
Perhaps pick my eyebrow hairs out.
Perhaps still, cut my nails into the quick.
Cut my wrists even.
I wish for infection so I can tinker with it and incur no one's judgement.
For hours I am cold and alone, and I am giving myself small doses of pain.
I do it all to stop
the hysterical screaming diatribe against Me
which is in my head.
I cannot make it stop forever,
but stop it must, immediately.
I cannot sleep like this,
I make my head empty.
I busy my hands.
I hate myself.
I want evidence.
I deserved it. It is sick.
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