Work Text:
When you bleed from the mouth and your lip skin is damaged, you start by using as much tissue as possible.
It's crazy how much you can bleed from there.
First they're handkerchiefs, then your clothes, the back of your hands... You're getting almost desperate.
If you ignore it, you take the risk of swallowing it. And although you are used to the taste of blood, it is never very pleasant. It's heavy, metallic, infecting. You feel dirty, sticky, almost teary. But it doesn't stop. It just doesn’t.
So you’re still struggling until finally; it starts to slow down. But it hurts then, you didn’t realise, busy as you were.
You can’t open your mouth without feeling your skin cracks. When you touch them, it’s weird, dented and so fragile. Different skin types that are oh so tempting.
You want to touch them.
You can't, you understand that, and yet you do. If you start, you won't stop. You repeat in your head. Again and again until it starts itching.
Pulling them out is always a big mistake. Knowing that never stopped you from doing it.
When you do, you feel like shit. Your lips hurt, your ego too. There’s once more blood on your face, in your mouth, but in your fingers too. They’re between your fingernails now.
You lose track of time and stop only when you forget to move.
Is it over?
No, there are always the stares, the questions. “What did you do?” “It was an accident”
It’s not really a lie after all.
“Be careful, don’t pull on it” they will say. If they're familiar to you, they know what happens when you bleed. They will add “Try to control yourself, don’t do it again”.
As if it wasn’t exactly what you wanted to do from the start. It’s not that easy you want to say. And they don’t understand, they just can’t.
You don’t have to wait for your next wound; the temptation is still with you.
You could be partially, fully or not at all healed...and you will still pull. You could keep this mark on your face for a long time.
When you bleed from your mouth, it’s the start of hell. The hell of your mind.