lines drawn

My cuts are open-mouthed sirens singing high-pitched help psalms. If you looked you would know. If you saw I wouldn't have to tell. My parents saw it as a suicide attempt that first trip for stitches. Then they never spoke of it again. The day after no one would speak to me at all as if I had sinned against them.

Each wound is a different cry, a different voice. Each is as significant as the next one and the one before it. Each one is silenced and shrouded in gauze and bandages and often never spoken of to anyone. If I slice my skin in silence is my skin even really split? If no one sees it where is the proof it took place?

Sometimes I want someone to take care of them but when I do I downplay it, I am calm and smiling "this is not the worst." 17 years and I started at 17. The damage has been done, the stitches aren't cosmetic.

My case worker doesn't ask about my cutting anymore, it is as predictable as the seasons. But no one sees it happen for real on the bathroom floor when I'm alone. No one can come near where I am really at inside my mind. Everything stained. They told me I would die and then I almost have.

Where are the neon read warning signs now, the wasted breath of whispers in my ear demanding I stop? That part is over. There seems to be a fine line between giving up and allowing me to just what I'm going to do anyway.

I know they care. But sometimes I wish they would hold my hands away from my razors and protect me from what I want.