"The truth about childhood is stored up in our body and lives in the depth of our soul. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings can be numbed and manipulated, our perception shamed and confused, our bodies tricked with medication. But our soul never forgets. And because we are one, one whole soul in one body, someday our body will present its bill." --Alice Miller

I take pills everyday, as prescribed, by someone who listens to my problems, who shows sincerity and honestly wants to help. The pills do not help. I do not know if I perpetuate this bleak state of mind, always coming back to it. I remember now my own body, continually marked by myself, and try to smile and cry at the same time.

I remember, my scars of previous months have slowly started to fade, but they are still an ugly muted red. They still remind me of the intense flood of emotion and the quick, hard, silver slash of control. I remember. I see the bright, blossoming blood, seeping out between the interesting layered complex of skin, subcutaneous fat, and pallid pink muscle. It's almost orgasmic, no, it's better than sex, it's better than putting something into my vein, or snorting cocaine or ultram, or anything I've tried to numb the emotions that just will not stop. It's a crimson scream from inside my body, crying its red tears down the length of my naked skin, coloring it with raw intensity. I watch hypnotic, strangely pleased, as my own medicine takes work, and then my eyes close as I feel something inside. I feel a soothing warmth starting deep in my abdomen, that floods my body percolating through my veins to every part of me. To the tips of my toes that were tense, to the fingers and arms that were shaking, to the clenched eyelids that were pained with crying, and finally to my own volatile mind that would not let go.

This cultivated society of needs and necessity force me to do this. I am not wrong. I am not crazy. I am not broken. I am only a simple person who wants to have dreams again and the motivation to want to have a future. I do not abhor people, but their thoughts make me sick, with their animalistic simplicity -- violence and hurt, their sick sadistic thoughts -- they are more sick than me. What terror are they thinking about me as I walk past each person? Do not tell me.

I am scared I will die, without this ability to cut myself. I love my scars. I love the memories associated with each and every one. I can touch each one, run my finger along the tightened knot of flesh, that I find so pretty, and recall with clarity why it's there. I love the memory cocooned inside every scar, safe, unable to be born again to release their collective reverie on me. Each scar contains bruised emotions, but they are always trying to be reborn, to grasp a grey empty fold of brain, to fester and grow inside and until it makes me remember what I've tried so hard to bury in my own flesh. These scars are graveyards I have made, to stop myself from making my own to hold it all inside, forever, never thinking again. If I stop watching myself, just for a second, and let myself slip, these dead emotions waiting to be reborn in my scars will blossom into beautiful butterflies made of hurt. Their wings of thorns brush my skin. My insides clench, as I am reminded of the emptiness inside where I once had a heart. Old memories float on their wings fluttering before my eyes, dust the color of ash falls before my eyes fashioning a hidden landscape replete with people, feelings, and yes, the hurt. It wants to be relieved again. I clench my eyes to try to stop it, they tear up as I feel myself failing, and I try not to remember. I try to control the tears that so desperately want to fall. Sometimes I can. Sometimes I can't and I fly deep inside myself, to where I can lay down and rest in this ashen landscape of the past. I can forget the tears rolling down my face. I can forget the noises of hurt coming from my mouth. I can almost forget the emptiness I feel. I can rest here, entombed in depression, trapped in memories, but safe from the outside.

I clench my eyes, and today, that memory fades away. A smile breaks the sadness of my face as I stop caressing that scar. Today is another day, that I have not flown deep into familiar territory to lay down and ignore the outside world.

I hate to hurt myself, just to survive another day. Another day, where I try to look inside myself and find the latent energy that I always seem to possess, that will let me continue. This process happens every day, and every day I try to fool myself. Yes, today will be different. I will change. I will adapt. I will rid myself of this maladaptive behavior and break out of my own self-contained walls and obtain whatever freedom I'm seeking. I cannot know what I want, all I know is that I do not have it. Whatever I want, I want to take it, make it mine, and for once, feel at peace without flooding my mind with chemicals, or crying the feeling out, or healing myself with hurt.

I used to know what I wanted, it turned out that it wasn't right for me. I cannot find what is right for me. Is there anything? Have I woken up today and pulled my leaden body from the tomb I rest in each night just to find the same thing again, over and over, always nothing? Please, let me not awaken another day tomorrow, and let me rest, my body covered and hidden, my eyes closed from the world, not ever to wake again; or let me discover the reason for being born into a world that does not understand me and does not want me.

I self-medicate with hurt to heal myself. I do this not to live, but to survive, for if I stop, I will die.