There are poems on my skin.
Their couplets etched in blood, each stanza rough and jagged. Each line carelessly scrawled in pain through a stainless steel pen. No rhyme. No reason.
I used to hear about young people and adults who would engrave their own poetry on their skin. They would talk about the temporary release they felt with each cut, each burn, each scratch, or whatever their means of medium was and how, even for just a moment, the pain they felt inside came to a stop. I listened and ashamedly dismissed these stories as the tall tales of the disturbed. Looking for attention is what passed through my mind along with a myriad of other things. Crazy. Dangerous. You get the idea.
Now as I sit here bearing the scars of my own engraving I realize a painful reality--I am these other people. I touch my hand to my skin's broken edges and I wish that somehow with each touch my skin would go back together as it once was. I run my hand along each surface and ask myself if I am indeed crazy or, at the very least, on my way there. Am I looking for a way out of this rat race called life? Am I simply looking for attention? What is wrong with me?
The truth of the matter is, I am neither crazy nor am I looking for attention. I am not ready to leave this world and I certainly do not want to help myself along. I am battling a dragon that is bigger than myself who, as I have said once before, is coming against me with every weapon, every fiery dart, every jab, every means possible to break me. The pain and the loneliness that goes with it is isolating to the point of being crippling. Simple every day tasks drain me of energy and it takes every ounce of strength I have left to move throughout my day. Each day is a battle. Each day I fight.
Will my skin contain anymore poems?
I don't know...
I pray not....
And so, the war wages on. I will fight as I have never fought before. The dragon will not win. He may come at me still with everything he has. He may knock me down. I may bear scars. I will not be beaten down!
