CONTENT WARNING: WRITTEN
DEPICTION OF BODY/LIMB MUTILATION, SELF-HARM, MENTIONS OF ASSAULT AND
RAPE.
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Sometimes in my
dreams, I feel parts of myself get cut off. Or crushed. Or screws bolted
into them, or burned, or electrocuted, or I feel water fill my lungs as
I drown. When I wake up, thankfully, everything is still there. But I
can't help wondering what the pain would be like.
I have those thoughts most whenever I see someone get hurt. Whenever I
betray myself. Whenever I get betrayed. It sickens me to some extent,
but I can't stop it--I can't stop the thoughts, I can't stop the dreams,
the nightmares. It all keeps happening so much.
I think it's only because I think violence to the self is the one choice
I have. I cannot fight, I cannot breathe, I cannot run, I can only cut,
cut, cut away at this body. My blood lubricates the gears, my bones are
ground into sediment and my muscles are feasted upon in the flames.
My lover is raped. I cut. My best friend is slaughtered. I cut. My
brother is demonized. I cut. Yes, yes. I take up the kitchen
knife, I put my hand on the cutting board, and with one swift movement,
across the tendon and between the joint, my pinky is gone. The wood is
stained cherry. I'll never balance a sword in one hand now. So be it.
I imagined what it would be like if my damage equated to another's
healing. If that was so, every morning I would wake up and begin the
torture. I would take hammers to my toes. I would take saws to my legs
and scissors to my arms. I'd throw my limbs into machinery and hear a
cacophony of mutilation. I wouldn't cry. No, no tears of sorrow or pain.
Only calls of joy. Joy to the world. Joy to me, my life and
body has equated to something.
I lick my lips. This flesh is worthless if it's not in service, right?
But when has harm to my body ever helped another? That didn't stop the
assault; that didn't stop the parent from bludgeoning the child, or the
boss from soliciting the subordinate. It has never helped. You know what
would?
I take the blade. I smile. I look down at the perpetrator from my high
rise of tortured souls, of excavated ribcages and pin-diagrammed nerve
endings. I say, I feast, I feast, I feast upon thee. I come forth.
It runs down my hands. To whom do I owe the honor?