The perfect lines I carved that decorate my body...
3:37 p.m.

You need to know this, because I love you, but I just can't bring myself to tell you. Because I didn't do it for the attention.

The first time I cut myself, I used a pair of nail scissors and hacked at the same inch of my arm about 50 times until I bled. Until it was raw enough to scab over, to throb the next day, even. That's not what I wanted. I didn't want raw, rough, jagged lines decorating my body, I wanted smooth cuts, perfect, short, thin lines, leaking blood across my skin. I realized my dad had razors in the closet, big razors people use for home repair - 2 inch long razor blades. I brought one up to my room and sliced inch-and-a-half long lines, all parrallel, down my arm. About 5 inches of railroad tracks on the smooth white skin of my inner upper arm. It hurt, I won't deny it - but not until after. It didn't hurt until after I was all done, until I carefully wrapped up my razor in a Kleenex and placed it, carefully, in the back of my dresser drawer. I told my mother a few days later, after I'd cut again. We were in the car and I started to tell her, but then I started crying, and I managed to choke it out. She got harsh - "With what?" I stopped crying. "A razor blade." "Let me see." Very harsh, cold, demanding. I pulled up my sleave and showed her the self-inflicted tattoos, the older ones faded, newer ones dark and red and fresh.

I'm seeing a pychologist now, about it, but the doctor still doesn't know why I'm really there: I'm too embarrassed to tell him. I can tell he doesn't think I should be there, thinks I'm normal and well-adjusted.

A while ago, I started cutting, again. I had all along, just not much. Maybe a cut or two a month, and not very deep. It was then, I don't know why, that it actually hurt while I dug the blade in my arm. I could only cut once or twice at a time, it hurt too bad to do more than that. But recently, I was able to start again. Even more so, in quantity and severeness. I don't cut on my inner-upper-arms, anymore: I'm still wearing short-sleaved shirts, I don't want people to see. I have dozens of deep red, almost black, perfect slices on my hips, though. They bled, really bled - little beads of blood bubbling through the incision. I'd whipe the small bulb of blood with a tissue, whiping it around on my hip, dying my skin pink, the tissue a dark crimson. I only cut before I go to sleep, at night, and when I wake up in the morning, there are perfect, inch-long rust colored staines on my sheets.

And it is beautiful.

I'm sorry if this will make you worry, I don't want you to worry about me, or pity me. I'm dealing with life the best I can, and this helps. It might not be the best way, but for me i's the best I know how.

Like I said, before, L, I love you. And I just wanted you to know.

<< - >>