In and of

You flex your fingers around the hilt of the blade, cuticles encrusted with rust red and nails rimmed dark, and stab down. Once, twice, again and again. Blood spatters and tendons loosen and fiber rips and it’s still not enough, never will be enough. Metal squelches against raw flesh, the squeal of a brutalized animal, torn apart by unflinching hands. Metal shudders against bone, a vibration that peals down your arm like a morbid church bell. Metal cuts deep and dives deeper and doesn’t relinquish its hold.

You force your fingers to drop the blade, leaving it embedded in the chunk of muscle that continues its steady thumps, like nothing has happened. You force yourself to take a step back and wipe your hands off on the fabric of your jeans. You force yourself to squeeze your eyes shut so hard that electricity flashes behind your lids like demonic fireflies, like UFOs in the dead of night, like a million tunnels leading to a million lights that you’ll never reach. You force yourself to look away from the figure in the mirror, the one who dares to stand there unscathed and unharmed, pale and drawn and creased and still very much alive.

You can’t.

You can’t.

You can’t, because then they’ll know. They’ll know, and then they’ll judge, and then they’ll hate you,

The way you hate yourself.

You can’t, because you’re a coward and you can’t face the consequences of your actions when the jury isn’t yourself.

You can’t, because you deserve the punishment but no one knows to inflict it upon you, the guilty, but you, the enemy run free.