3/12
So. This one time, someone asked her what was wrong. And she said “Excuse me, I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”
And then someone asked her why. Why every time she had the chance she’d put herself down. They thought that she couldn’t see herself clearly, but they didn’t see that every time she went out for a smoke break she’d come back with a new understand of pain glassing her eyes.
She loved the way her menthols looked when they kissed her Jesus flame, the way the paper slowly deteriorated, falling desperately in love with the heat just long enough to ash. And that made her ache.
The tender baby flesh under the cuffs of her sweater itched, itched to much to really scratch. And if no one was looking, she’d find a spot, a new spot, unblemished by the kitchen steak knives she’d secret away with her into the dusty birdcage of an attic and let the ember brand her.
Then the perfect spot was gone, but now it was almost better. Shiny, smooth. She knew it was sick, she loved the popping, the searing soundtrack playing in her ears with the warmth of her vinyl playing on Dad’s old turntable, pulled out of storage from the basement. The only thing left of him she really cares about, something he’s too ashamed of to display. Four, maybe five new points proudly protruding from her. Peaks of mangled meat. Those are her infinite moments.
