He is okay.
He is perfectly fine.
He has come to know this to be the truth; no matter how many times he wants to say otherwise, he cannot argue the fact that he is absolutely, definitively, alright.
He repeats this to himself sometimes, late at night. When the sky is dark and his apartment is dark and the only light to be found is the glow from the television, screen frozen on one frame of an old movie that he doesn't remember.
He chants it, over and over, as his fingers slip past the layer of cloth keeping him separate from his intentions and pick gently at the skin beneath.
He breathes the phrase in and out as one hand breaks away to grab at the handle of his favorite tool. And he thinks it as the steel edge is forced just past soft skin, sliding from one end of a frail abdomen to the other.
I am okay. This is okay.