day 13

I sliced my thumb open, right under the knuckle, with a pocket knife on Friday.
My mother called as it happened, and when I said, oh that's a lot of blood,
you could tell she thought it was on purpose.

I would probably answer the phone during my own suicide.

In the shower, I picked at the scab after it softened. I had to pull a little. It hurt.
The pain of my thumb silences the echoes through our three bedroom apartment at three thirty
in the morning, as one roommate thinks she's being quiet when her boyfriend flips her over on the bed and she laughs, while the other opens our front door, turning off the alarm, just arriving home.

I continue to pick at the scab, now fresh and bleeding. I'm laughing, bent at the knees and holding my hand slightly above my head for elevation. There's enough pressure in my life.
The subtle once over by thin women outside the store, gathered around their phones
and long named coffee drinks. The blunt grandmother who tells me not to let food decide my mood.
The paranoia from behind my back giggles or too long glances.

That pocket knife went back in my desk, with my binder clips and multicolored highlighters
and five different pens that all write black ink. My blood seems darker than I imagined.
Do we ever really take notice of the exact hue until it drips down arms and onto the carpet
and starts to disturb other people? It's always about the other people.

My mother called again, shortly before she walked into work, shortly after bandage number two
and asked if I had talked to a boy recently--a boy I last heard from two years ago. A boy, who
if I spoke to again, I would pick not a scab, but scarred skin. And if I have to answer another well-meaning question about why I'm still single, or are boys blind, or what about babies, I'll laugh
and shrug, sure. But warn you, there's a lead bubble raging in my throat, full of shame, self-hate,
and scabs picked off in distraction.

In the shower--hot water and soap streaking down my back, mixing with blood droplets on the floor--as I tore open my left thumb, I resolve to go to bed hungry. Waking up empty means my body worked harder over night, that and the inside sting out-screams the outside sting and distracts one more day.