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The first time I remember wanting to kill myself was mid my possession. Possessed. That is the only way I know how to put it. It was during a time before 4th grade. Maybe before second because I can only remember a blurryness so perhaps it was before my. Glasses My family lived it a hotel. One room two beds four of us. I took a sharp decline. Or at least I think that’s is how I became open for control I am not sure. All I know is every night I would sleep on a palet between the two beds. Scratching myself hissing hating crying. I wanted to not be there. But there was so much bigger then my small possessed mind could fathom it was in this space I realized I wished I would die.
The second time I felt it so viscerally was in 6th grade. Mid way through the school day I had gotten a sharpie and wrote on my hand kill me. Sharpies have always made my skin tingle in an uncomfortable way. A reaction to the unknown ink seeping into my pores and yet I left it. Left it until I forgot the words were there. As if by holding them on my skin I could manifest- curse the words into being. That day my mom picked me up I saw her eyes track to my hand nd read the words but she did not ask me about them she didn’t ask as I covered my hand she didn’t ask as I spit into my palm rubbing and scratching the kill me away she didn’t ask and I didn’t ask wether I felt it was still true.
For a bit leaving left my mind and controlling what I was dealt entered. I began to itch. When I would hear the sound of crashed plates and yelled words I would itch my skin would prickle and I may deny my mind but who am I to deny my body and so I would scratch my legs over and over until the skin would peel my hands over and over the same place to see. The itch would go it would come it would be and I with my mind realized my nails would never be enough.
I’m first year of highschool when my itch would swell. For the first time prepared my myself for something else. I sat crossed with the blade of a sharpener. I had heard word of my brothers sister (not me) being hospitalized because she was “unwell” she cut. She tried to kill herself and failed. So I could not be unwell. A heard word. So crossed yet again on the side of my bed I forewent my usual places of scratching. My hand, my thighs, my arms, my legs, all my places where they could see became sites of pristine beauty. Instead I butterflied my legs out the insides of my feet facing towards the sky. I am nothing if not through so I cleaned the inside of my feet with cleaning pads. Placing the blade right in the middle. And I scratched. I itched. So I scratched.
I like to think the itch will fully disappear one day. Like growing pains I’ll wake to find my bones have settled into their final length and my skin has grown over its scars smooth yet again. I am 22 and I have yet to find that truth. At times my itch will come and I will press my nails into the back of my shoulder, my arm, my hands and press and scratch until it is away. Other times I’ll simply take a deep breath in and remember my butterflied legs remember my scratching remember my hissing my hating my being and I’ll breath out taking my consciousness with me. At those times I feel both strong and weak not in between but both. At those times I’m sure I can live that what I have been doing is surviving and successfully at that at those times I am prepared to keep going until the next.
I am 22 and I am okay. My bones still ache at times I’m sure I’m still possessed and at other times I feel so sore from my itch sore enough to lather my skin with healing cream a bandage and a kiss sore enough to know that I am healing and that healing means I am living