It’s hard to find the right words. They come so easy when it rains, but after the storm is over, remembrance of it--disappears, somewhat. But standing in the rain, I’ve realized, was a very long waste of my life--one and a half years. So though I’m fifteen, I’ve really only lived thirteen and a half years; and being deprived of those, it’s as if I am no longer a teen altogether. But I digress! That wasted time--October 31st, 2004, to April 1st, 2006--was spent crying and dragging a blade across my skin and watching the blood run down. After a while, I realized that nobody knew--nobody cared enough to be able to know, nobody cared enough for me to want them to know--and that I was doing it all for myself, all just so I could see with my own eyes an actual physical thing for the havoc that left my mind in billowing and bloody tatters in a breeze. And finally, when I knew that I now had scars, scars on my body that would last for a year, several years, maybe even a decade or a lifetime--I realized, this was it. I had my words etched on my body already, all that I ever wanted. Now that I was sure that they’d always be there, I stopped. I never vowed to stop; I just did it a whole lot less, until after a while I realized that I didn’t need any more. I’d been clean for a month before I realized that I was clean, that I didn’t need this. Sometimes I think of the pain as beyond cutting; that my pain is beyond, worse than, far greater than, cutting. But the thing is…I’m happy. I’m content. I’m forging stronger friendships with the few (one or two people, only) that are still left. I’m trying to become friends with new people. I’m trying to get out more, push for risks, instead of weeping and folding back into that black spiral shell that I lay cradled in for so long, rotting in the dank and putrid muck. It’s taken a while, but I’m writing again. Pain is so easy to put down. It’s the true knowledge from the pain that isn’t easy to find a voice for. But I’m doing it. And I’m picking up where I left off with my myriad novels that I never finished--I am, quite literally, picking up my life again. 1
I sit on the bus, still half-laughing over my friend’s suggestion that we all go try to ask a nurse in the office for some condoms, as a joke, and I sit up straight, alive and grinning to myself, gazing out at the post-rain, April afternoon. The clouds shift about, allowing sunshine--the bright, clean, after-winter, promising sunshine--to light up the world. My eyes feel bright and clean and lively, and I feel as if my eyes have only been half-open until now. Now, my eyes are absorbing everything. I’m happy that I’m alive--and to think that there were so many times, honestly, in which my life came so close to ending!--and I know now that I shall keep these scars forever.
2
Author notes
Thank you, Emma.
A contest entry
- Write it Up. by asthray.heart.
530 points, ended April 22, 2007, 41 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please share your thoughts and any suggestions for the improvement of my organization (I apologize, but I wrote this all in a 10-minute inspiration streak, so it's a bit rough. :)
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
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This was good, was full of emotion. if this is true then I must congradulate you on your strength to stop and see life for what it is truly worth.
Good job and good luck in the contest.
Lady Madeline.
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Gracias! And yes, it is true. However, I did start doing it again a while after I wrote this, up until October 2006.
But then I finally found a better reason to stop for good, and I've been clean ever since. ^^
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wow... this is impressive, not so much the writing (which is good though) but the story and the fact that it is true. you should be very proud of yourself for getting through that and making it where you made yourself be okay. it's not an easy thing to do but it is worth it. i know because i have been through the same thing, it's a miserable miserable thing. i'm glad that you're better although i know it is an ongoing process.
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^__^ Thank you. Actually, I did continue again for a while after I wrote this....I wrote this in one of the rare streaks in which I was happy, but by October (6 months after I wrote this) I'd really stopped, and so far I haven't cut since. :]
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that's great, i'm really proud of you I haven't gone that long unfortunately. I told myself I'd stop back in October but then I did about four more times since. The last time was last month but I really will stop now.
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I didn't think it was rough at all. Quite the opposite, I thought it was wonderful. Its frustrating that I couldn't find these words to describe my situation but I would probably use different words anyway. Truly a wonderful representation of the sensations. Thank you for sharing.
beginning: 3, language: 3, plot: 3, ending: 4, dialog: 3, characters: 3.
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Thank you very much for commenting! Awh, keep trying, the words will eventually come to you so you can describe your own situation. I like to take my cues from nature, or a scene or something I can describe, and then I relate/link my feelings and thoughts to that. I'm in a bit of a writing "slump" right now, but hey, it might work for you. Try it! ^_^
~ Lady ~
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Excellent!
Lady, big whoop it took you 10 minutes to write this it was amazing! I am so proud of you Lady E you have no idea and I love ya never forget that. People can read this and realize that they too can start over again! Your beginning and they ending were well done and everything in the middle was heart felt. I am so proud of you Erica, you're my new hero!
beginning: 5, ending: 5.
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