totally and entirely empty
I watch my reflection as I drag the blade across my skin, it’s dull as hell so I have to push hard. The skin starts to burst like cutting a soft fruit through the skin. I do it along my arms, my legs, my stomach, my hips, the water in the tub turns to a lovely pink.
I know it’s not enough, that I will just sit here in the hot water until it goes cold, and the water gets darker, but I will still be here at the end of it.
I sigh and start to drain the tub. I clean up the angry red splashes on the wall and floor. I stand and look at my naked self in the mirror, blood still dripping down my body. Maybe next time it will work, I’ll try another way.
I put on some bandages just to avoid getting blood all over the place, and clean off the dull knife. I really need to sharpen it or soon it won’t be able to cut at all. I’ve carved too much wood for it and I can see the startings of rust from sap that I must have accidentally let sit there for too long.
I can still feel the raw ache inside my rib cage that the knife did nothing to quell. It’s a constant gnawing that is only gone for the few seconds between breaths when I’m so high I can’t feel my fingers, or if I am in enough physical pain I can’t feel inside me.
I can’t stop searching for how to stop this bare emptiness that aches to be filled with something, anything, but I don’t know what.
I need to express it, if I can recreate the emptiness then maybe it can be filled. I try to write a story, write lyrics, draw, paint, dance, sing anything. I can get so close I can almost feel what it’s like to be normal, almost.
I wrap myself up in my robe and stagger into my room. I fall asleep empty, I will wake up empty.
I listen to music and try to let it consume me, I can’t but it gets close. I take out my guitar and try to make music of my own, but there is just emptiness in my heart and in my head, so I stare out my window, I’m not even sure I see anything, it might be snowing, or maybe raining, hell it might even be hailing.
I get up and walk down the stairs because I need to eat, I don’t want to but there’s not much else I can do, and at least my stomach will stop hurting, even if not my chest.
People yell at me for not doing my work, for messing up again, for failing, they’re my parents, I start to get upset before I remember that at any moment I could find a way that finally works. I sip my coffee and let the disappointed words go in one ear and out the other. Maybe I’ll try going outside again today.
They’re still yelling at me as I put on my shoes, telling me I can’t go outside until I actually do something productive. I turn around and go out the other door, they stop yelling because they don’t want the neighbors to hear. How awful would they look if the neighbors saw them?
I’m starting to notice more things as I go outside, I wander into the woods and I know there are trees around me, I can feel them, just barely. I think I can hear the river.
I reach the river and take off my shoes, I let my toes dangle in the water and part of me worries a fish will start to nibble on them, the rest of me doesn’t care. I can see that it’s starting to turn green around me, it’s the start of spring but there’s still a tiny bit of snow. Cold, it’s cold, oh god my feet are cold.
I dry off my feet with my jacket and put them back in my socks and shoes before crossing a felled tree over the river. Maybe it’s more of a stream, but I enjoy the idea of crossing a river more than a stream. It’s shallow here; if I feel I would probably be up to my knees, but it’s fairly wide, it takes nearly the entire tree trunk to get to the other side of the river.
I sit down somewhere on the other side and start carving something out of a fallen branch, I think it’s turning into a mushroom.
Before heading back I leave my mushroom there, a gift to the tree it fell from.
