Nothing.

One second you can be composed and relatively content and the next you can be in tears after realising all of what you've been trying to hold inside.


I cut myself and hurt myself, I'm a pain slut. Yes. Why do I do that? Why don't I care about my body? Why am I such an idiot to take any sharp edge near me and gorge out my skin with it? Why?


I just had a conversation that suddenly resulted in me resenting ever speaking to the person on the other side of the phone. It wasn't because he was particularly horrible... It was more what he made me think about.


I've been forcing myself to be happy in order to get over someone recently. Yet now, that all seems to be even more fake than I initially realised. 


All the pseudo-happiness, the cutting, the bleeding, the butterfly-shaped scars... it means and does nothing.


I've just remembered how much I hate being me.


--J.

Don't Forget Me, Ma Rosie

I don't want my grandmother (I call her my Ma) to forget me. I just can't deal with it. Every time I think about it for longer than 5 seconds I start tearing up. I can't do this. She's a part of me and I can't let her go.

I never truly realised, until now, how I fear being forgotten. 

My grandmother, who will be 76 this year, has been diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer's. Her mind is slowly slipping from her along with, I fear, her memories. I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling now... but I just can't help but cry. I don't want her to wake up and not know where she is or who her family is. I don't want her to forget us. 

I've been fortunate enough to have grown up with a large family as a support group. I've experienced the death of relatives before... But she's my grandmother. She was and is so much a part of my life. I've watched over the years as she has become older and slightly weaker. I never imagined ever having to deal with the prospect of her death until recently. I'm not ready for her to go just yet. Nor am I ready for her to begin to slip away. She can't forget. 

It's not fair. Life isn't fair. I won't pretend that I don't wish it was but God never promised fairness in this life... ever. If I think about it, if life was fair... I wouldn't be alive. If life was fair then my second eldest sister wouldn't have been born with Trisomy 18 (Edward's Syndrome) and she wouldn't have died in my mother's arms after a short five weeks of living. My parents wouldn't have had me if it weren't for her death. That's perspective. At this moment though, I wish my grandmother was perfectly fine and that she was unaffected by the effects of old age. It's not fair. She doesn't deserve this.

I don't want to be forgotten. I don't want her to look at me blankly as though I were a stranger.I don't want her to ask me my name. I want her to know who I am when she looks at me. I want her to see her Jilly (She's the first person who ever called me consistently by that nickname). I want her to remember everything. I don't want her memories to fade away until she has nothing left to cling to.

My mother says that all we can do right now is love her and spend time with her. We need to be patient and calming. We need to help her in ways that medication will not. Obviously, there is no cure for Alzheimer's and the medication she's currently on will not prevent the inevitable from happening but will slow down the process. All I can do is pray for her peace of mind. All I can do is spend time with her and love her. 

I love you, Ma Rosie.

--J.

Butterfly

They're all judging me. They think I'm useless and they don't want me here. I can't let them find the real me. They'll all hate who she is. They'll despise her. They'll maim the butterfly.


The sharp point slid slowly over my skin. It took a short while before the flesh gave way and thin lines of blood crept to the surface. The silent stinging was not for the pain but for the feeling. Prior to that moment, I was happy. Happy with being nothing. Content with feeling nothing. Then came the moment where all I wanted was feeling instead of the cool numbness that had then been paralysing me. As the pattern bled into being with every consecutive slice and cut, I smiled... because I felt it.


I've cut out of depression before. I've cut out of addiction before. This felt different. I was not manoeuvring a razor blade across my forearm to watch the blood ooze down my arm as my body collapsed in protest. I was not violently etching names and words into my body with a drawing in the hopes of remembering those who had forgotten me. I didn't cry. I didn't feel as though what I was doing was a result of one person in particular. I was patient and meticulous, rigorous yet gentle through the process. There was little blood... Just the delicate redness surrounding the careful arrangement of soon-to-be scars on top of my tired, swollen skin. 


There are few who understand people like me. There are even less who bother to try. Then there are those who don't have a choice but to try. They don't usually succeed. They asked questions. They judged. They're human in their inquiries of my animal ability to mutilate my own body without a hint of remorse.I couldn't pretend to blame them.


There was the butterfly... carefully carved into the back of my hand- caressing the pulsing veins directly below. Never before had I put so much effort into scarring my body. Never had I been so proud. I stared at the beautiful scar that now resided in my sight. I touched it only to calm the spontaneous stinging that rippled through the crimson edges of its wings. I thought about the motivation for its creation... for I previously had accepted that there was none- until now. 


I closed my eyes as I traced my fingers over the course edges of skin that had been sculpted into wings. I couldn't understand what they were hiding. I let the outside voices slowly pour into my head until I found my mind reeling with the questions and the heated disappointment that had been thrown at me. I began to her myself speak from the catacombs of my twisted mind that no one has yet reached. I opened my eyes. The marks on my hand were still there. I suddenly wanted them never to fade and then, just as suddenly, I wished for them to disappear. I saw, carved in my own flesh and blood,my overwhelming ugliness.


Butterflies are hideous. Their wings hide their faces and deceive all who stand from a distance. Should you get close enough, you find that they are not what you thought and not who you want them to be.


I fear what I've become. A girl lost in a world of blood and self-pity, misery and pain. Although I smile and remain alive on the outside, I'm something different when you look inside. I'm hanging onto life by the edge of the Cross, clutching to a promise for a better eternity. You will no longer love me when you see me. You'll see my ugliness. You'll think of me as twisted... as evil. Why do you think butterflies fly away when humans get closer? They don't want to be seen... Really seen. I don't want you to see me for my pain. I don't want you to know what goes through my mind as a drag a blade through my skin. I don't want you to know that I like it.


I don't let people see her- this girl that I am. This masochistic monster. This twisted demon that I've become.


This Butterfly.






--J.

Salt And Blood

Salt and blood. 

Even with the slightest amount of hope that you could still care, I was happy. If not happy, I was sane at least. I was functional. I was able to think of things other than you. Even with false faith in you, my life contentedly rested on the edge of light and dark.


I knew the truth long before you admitted it. I also knew that I didn't want to believe it. It's spectacular how far down one can entrench denial, to a point where it actually becomes a believable reality. Denial, in all its glory, shielded me from premature acceptance of what you eventually had to tell me for your own peace. Therefore, when you told me that you no longer had feelings for me, it set off the freshest of fires to the final shreds of composure I had left.


As if darkness and blood had washed over me, I found myself at a loss for words and void of all control over my life. Now it feels as though I'm spiralling into nothingness. 


I just wanted to know what it would feel like to be wanted by you. 


I fell for you. I got lost in you. As a result and as punishment, I am plagued by spontaneous tears and fresh scars. Now that I no longer have you. Now that you've happily moved on while I don't know what to do next.


Countless tissues have been discarded and numerous pillows have been cried upon during those sleepless nights. 


I'm just a ghost of a girl. Lost and confused. Broken and lonely. Depressed and stuck. Teary-eyed and newly scarred.   




--J.

The Sanity, The Courage & The Means

If I had the sanity, the courage and the means:


I would be outside your door in skinny jeans, my favourite wedge heels, a fitted waistcoat that left nothing to the imagination, my hair loose and in its natural curls and wearing no make-up except for my essential eye liner.


I would knock on the door of your co-owned flat using the rings on my left hand. I would wait with one hand carefully placed at my waist while from the other, a pack of Smirnoff Spin would dangle. Your brother would open the door and stare at me- wondering why the hell I was standing there, with a look implying that I expected to be let in. I would ask for you and his frown would dissipate ever so slightly before he turned his head and called your name. He would slowly move aside as you yelled back to find out the reason for being so crudely summoned. You would see me, your heart would sink and your footsteps would become heavy on your journey toward the door.


You would only let me in out of courtesy and because I of the a alcoholic peace offering. 


You would make minimal conversation... and I would search for questions that I could push to you. I would try so hard to look you in the eyes- those gorgeous and hypnotic green eyes. I would remember how you told me I had "Africa eyes" on the day that we last saw each other. I would wonder, during our conversation, what I had done to ruin things this time around. I would slowly die while you would subtly try... to get rid of me.


You would smile and laugh politely and then make up some excuse that would require me to leave as soon as possible. I wouldn't fight you... I can't. So I would leave as quickly as I would come... with four bottles of Smirnoff waiting to slightly numb me on my way home.


The door would shut harshly behind me and it would feel as though  hatred had been thrust upon me. I would breathe slowly and begin to walk away while regret, anger and all the other shades of pain would begin to envelope my mind. You would carry on with your new life- one that would exist all too happily without me. I would feel as though my life was over and that no one would ever find it within themselves to see something worthwhile in me. I would reluctantly walk away without having even tried to persuade you to love me.


I would still have my relative innocence. I would still have my purity. I would still have my virginity. I would still have the fresh crimson scars on my forearm and more would follow. I would still be without closure or sanity. I would still be consumed by fear.


I would still be unkissed for 3 months, 3 weeks and counting. I would still think about you endlessly. I would still cry after remembering just how happy I used to be with you. I would still see your green eyes in my mind. I would still hear your goofy laughter in a room filled with silence. I would still miss your touch and your voice. I would still have exactly the same feelings as the day I last saw you.


I would want to bleed into nothingness and you wouldn't miss me in the least.


I wouldn't move on because I just can't. 


--J.

I'll Never Be Like Her

There is no way that I will be pretty enough, skinny enough or merely just good enough.

I’m not her. I’m me. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do to change me.

I’m not pretty. I’m not skinny. I’m good… but clearly not good enough.

--J.

I Feel That Way Again

He gently placed his fingers over the thin white scars on my wrist. "You shouldn't have to feel that way,"he said quietly. I smiled weakly and tried my best to believe that he meant what he said.In that particular moment, he might have.Deep down, however, I couldn't believe him.

He always smiled sweetly when he saw me approaching. The sway in his walk and the way he moved was enough to make me nervous to a point where I was scared of not knowing what to say him. When I would finally reach him, he would give me that cute, awkward look. It made me feel as though, perhaps, he was just as scared as I was. 

We sat side by side both knowing, somewhat, of what would eventually have to happen. We talked for a while, silence lingering heavily we searched our minds for something to fill in the gaps that were starved of conversation.

When I kissed him on the cheek, I didn't expect him to pull me back once I had pulled away. I didn't  know what I was doing. All I knew was that it felt right. In that moment where I forced my lips away from his and rested my head in the curve of his neck, I felt myself slip beyond all hope of ever feeling nothing.

As if a force of cruelty sensed my momentary happiness, life became our greatest obstacle. Time did not favour or humour our, or perhaps solely my, desires. However, no amount of time would ever have truly been sufficient. As my opportunity slowly ceased and enthusiasm became dismal, I felt my heart leave my body as I lost him... All too quickly.

I continued to wait, as though I expected his return to be near to immediate. Fear consumed me once I realised that my expectations were not aligned with his. I suddenly lost all confidence in him having any feelings for me any longer. Doubt, fear and discouragement ruled me. I lost the hope that I could ever be truly loved.

I lie here now, contemplating my varying degrees of emotion, depression and self-scorn. The thin white scars, still lightly etched on my wrist, seem lonely and the smooth fragile skin of my forearm subtly screams to be severed and to be left to bleed out.

I knew from the very beginnings of my joy, to that of my current depression that he; ultimately, eventually and regardless of his intentions, would make me feel That Way.

--J.