Her Lovely Desires
She didn’t know why she behaved so erratically. The pleasurable idea of taking her own life was something that was constant within her thoughts—circling and whirring so constantly, a backdrop as she rhythmically went through the motions of her college life, that on some occasions, she would take the elevator up to the fourth floor of her dorm building and step out on the patio. She was sure that she would never do it, but
worthless, perverted, a freak of nature who should jump
took some sort of grim satisfaction in feeling that sharp, bitter wind lash against her face, the sway in the pit of her stomach as her combat boots stepped onto the fence’s raised curb. A suicide hotline was loud and flagrant as it was plastered on the wall connecting the balcony to the building—perhaps a reminder to students to not seek the permanent solution. And she found this amusing, but only for a few brief moments, before her mind would mock her once more and she’d quickly turn her head. The thought sometimes came of dialing that number, but it was a thought that her fingers never complied with. What use? She thought. There’s nothing about me worth saving. It was often when her spiraling took this sort of turn for the worse that she’d forcibly wrench herself back inside, and descend the flights of stairs to her second-story dorm, lest she linger out there any longer and give in to her most putrid desires.
A more exciting, heart-palpitating option—better, because it allowed her to not end up a mushy splat on the concrete—was hidden away in her backpack, anyways, and it was in the shape of an X-Acto knife, one she had purchased from her university’s student store some few weeks ago now, on a particular Friday afternoon when the Thoughts had been screeching into her brain, acidic and vile and cruel, and she’d needed something, anything to relieve the pain. It was truly a miracle that she’d never taken to smoking, and had too little friends to successfully become an alcoholic.
The blade was sharper than what she’d had to work with back home—a small paring knife with a brightly colored handle that she’d have to swipe from the kitchen very late at night, long after her father with his annoyingly late sleeping habits had gone to bed—and this was something that she’d rather painfully discovered upon her first use of it that afternoon. It had barely even crossed the scar-marked skin beneath her breasts when the blood began to bloom hot and fast, a brooding sort of maroon that leaked from a line nearly invisible, other than the bright sting it bestowed. In the back of her mind, so deeply buried that it was never there at the forefront, guilt was humming softly. The tentative agreement she’d once made with herself, that she’d only cut up her skin during the university holidays when she’d be back at home—a feeble sort of self-preservation, but one that kept her clean for the better part of the year regardless—had been irreparably shattered. No longer did she have to wait the slow, ticking weeks until she could finally feel that familiar, wonderful pain—a pain she had once tried to replicate by furiously scratching her sharp nails along her arms, or using the pointed end of her lotion bottle at an angle and dragging it below her breast like she was striking a match, but it was never the same—for now she was free. The only issue with the X-Acto knife’s cuts were that they took a lot longer to stop bleeding, and since the weather was so cold and her breasts were so small, she didn’t usually wear a bra, choosing instead to hide beneath a thick sweater or hoodie. A morbid fascination crept through her at the thought that she’d be sitting in class one afternoon, and see her own blood trick, trick, trickle onto the floor, fresh from a recent bout of her sporadic skin slicing. But she knew that this would not happen. She wouldn’t let it. Instead, she would just sit in the dingy bathroom stall with wads of thin toilet paper stuck under her breasts and wait it out until the bleeding stopped, mindlessly scrolling through social media and wondering which AO3 fanfiction she should read during her free time later that night.
She thought that freedom was what purchasing this blade had acquired her. Freedom, the loaded word repeating within her head like a song left on loop. Freedom, to mark her body however she pleased
a body too disgustingly vile and grossly obscene to ever be truly desired, fat, fat, fat, she would always be that morbidly obese thirteen-year-old-girl that nobody could ever love
whenever she pleased, and it was great. But then, if she was truly so free, why had that nasty guilt crept up inside of her as she stood at the cash register? As she’d pitched up her voice, like she always unconsciously did whenever she was speaking to strangers, and refused to meet the student employee’s eyes as she’d slid her two purchases across the counter: the X-Acto blade and a two-pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, added at the last second because she hadn’t wanted to be too glaringly obvious of her grim intentions. If she was truly so great, then why did she make the purchase using the last of the pre-paid gift card her mother’s coworker had gotten her as a graduation present back in June? She didn’t know if her father could see what she had purchased with her debit card, besides the amount it had cost, but she hadn’t wanted to risk it. Those things could be traced, couldn’t they? And this was for her. Only her. Her nasty little secret, one she held tight to her shrewd little mind and relished in the secrecy of. Nobody had to know of the crosshatch of scars beneath her breasts, new ones vibrant against the shadows of those that’d been there for years, now. Nobody ever would know, she was sure, because she had long since accepted that she simply was not desirable
whale of a woman you’ll die alone better get it over with now you’re fucking revolting
enough to be seen in such an intimate context. Secrets, bleeding from her mouth spitting lies and bleeding from those scars that she would never let properly heal. No, she was not free, not in the slightest, but this did not, and would not, stop the young, foolish girl as the blade carved against her skin once more.













