I never hurt myself

But there were days when razor blades dripped with blood

Invisible to the world, but obvious from behind my glasses

Hiding eyes sunken in, buried under bags dark without the sleep

I promised my mother I was getting

I didn’t like lying

I never hurt myself

But one day I found myself in a locked bathroom

Mirror too bright, too much the image of myself I’m sure was fake

There were screws on the wall that held pictures long gone, shattered

And I pulled it out, fingernails scraping against popcorn walls

I stare at brown-fair skin, tan lines of the watch plotting my living, 65 bpm baby

Tan lines replaced by red, angry, bright, dripping down

There’s a pool of maroon on the floor, below the diving board

I wonder what it would be like to fall

Fingers tight around the screw, I draw the outlines of my perfect lines

Dig in deeper, beautifully parallel quintuplet marks, white on brown 

But I can’t break the skin, all my mind screams is “tetanus” 

…..why didn’t it scream “don’t hurt me”

I never hurt myself

I never broke the skin

Because my brain can do so much worse

“shut up”, “they don’t care”, “don’t bother them with your stupidity”

“it’s all in your head”

Oh well, you’re right, in my head it is, but I wish it were that simple

See, my head is a battleground, littered with bodies of soldiers long dead

A compliment with a spear in his back, a hug brutally decapitated

Monster rages in the distance, it wavers and stumbles, but never falls

Spews the culmination of every humiliation and abandonment

Its weapons are the mistakes I haven’t made yet and may never do

It’s the possibility that stings more

I have never hurt myself

I bear no parallel scars

I left the razor blades in the drawer in my parents bedroom

But that doesn’t mean I’m not bleeding

My body is one wound, grotesque, don’t look at me

My tears are the only clear lines in a painting of rotten ichor

I am a tower of Legos crumbling to pieces, I try to rebuild

But you can’t build a masterpiece without a foundation

So I fall, fall, fall again, silent in the night 

I scream, no pillow to muffle the sound because no one will hear anyway

Maybe that’s why I’m screaming, why aren’t they listening 

I forgot that I gifted them headphones, noise canceling

So I scream away and beg that someone comes running

But they don’t, they never do, is it my fault or theirs

I say nothing and they do nothing

But it’s all OK, because I never hurt myself