Cycle

I know I am good. After all, bad people do not tell people they are bad to the extremity I have unless they are not trying to convince themselves of it.

I believed it for years. I think, nearly twenty-three, that I am not so horrible.

I am older, now. Cannot hate my teenage self for suriving. Do not discount her actions, because it was all she had. A lashing tongue- barbed with harm, and lingering with longing. Some were drawn. Some were not. Some loathe me. Some accept all I had to give.

But I am not a teen anymore. I have had years to hate myself. Years to try to be anyone but myself.

Yet, I persist.

I have done bad things- but that does not make me bad.

My heart bleeds for things I've said a decade ago. I make amends when I can. Some do not want to bathe in my copper tears, others abate my crimson care for a dubious understanding.

But I still bleed like they never anointed me. My blood spurts, uneven from a faucet unforgiven and unnoticed especially, until I am weak and laying in a lukewarm puddle of my own pain.

I hope the blood will soak to my skin. So all will know my guilty, and apology. But that is the same seeking as bleeding it raw, is it not?

I've done enough damage. So I do not harm myself. I better myself in the name of those I harmed.

And yet, I drink, and drink, until those who hurt me numb.