The First Time
Trigger Warning: the following content contains graphic detail on self-inflicted harm. If this is a triggering topic for you, reader discretion is advised.
The unwelcoming storm that brought a cloud of impending doom loomed above her.
The familiarity of the cold, hard ceramic tiles lining the bathroom walls that slid against her sweaty back felt like a second home when she felt so lost. Recklessly, the thud of her body plummeting to the ground was interrupted by the sound of her hyperventilating and suffocating from her lack of oxygen. The tightening in her throat reminded her of the night she felt the abusive arms of the man on the street who choked her for his ‘amusement’. Unable to bear the heartbreak any longer, she failed to gather herself from the dishevelled heap on the floor as her grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears.
Between the sharp and shallow intakes of breath, her mind felt disassociated from her body, and the vision of bright yellow bulbs that lit up the bathroom before, now looked kaleidoscopic. It was exactly like when you close your eyes and press down on your eyelids, seeing silver stars exploding in the eerie darkness of the night sky.
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Continuously praying to feel less, she reminded herself that it was a bad day for her, not a bad life.
Her heart was pounding, trying to help a body that no one would ever find a love for. She could hear the amplified sound of her blood rushing through the rest of her body. Still incapable of sensing the movement of her hands and the tingling of her fingers after they felt as if they were set aflame.
In a constant lifelong effort to stay silent, she hoped no one could hear her since she rightfully believed that society and her parents would sympathize with her. Despite her back and face drenched in sweat, she stood up to go to the sink to run her face under the icy cold water but as she did, her clammy hands trembled, and she lost balance leaving her unsteady on her feet.
She rose back up and warily walked to the black wooden storage cabinet with French glass doors. Her quivering fingers mustered the courage and strength to open the cabinet door and take the glass shard she kept hidden to use as her last resort to ‘feel better’. Clenching the shard, she looked at her reflection in the broken piece of mirror and did the unimaginable. She cut. She squinted; her lips tightened and pressed upward, her eyes: bloodshot and her lips: swollen red from the endless bawling. Her right hand’s fingers were scarlet red from the shard. Despite knowing that her body was fighting to keep her alive for every second of existence with the force coursing through the very veins she had been so desperate to slit, she was tormented by her mind as she went further down the spiral. Her salty tears stung the fresh cuts that she etched on her skin as they bled along her face.
She whispered to herself, “you can’t let a bad day defeat you”.
As the feeling of her being held hostage inside her own home, inside her cloudy grey mess of a head with thoughts whirling had her suffocating even further, she looked at her hand. Under her left thumb was a small smudged sinuous semicolon drawn in black ink and she froze. The air around the punctuation mark may seem rather ridiculous to some, but to her, it was a profusely crucial prompt of how she’s the author of her own story, and, rather than a full stop to her life, a semicolon is more appropriate.
It was a bad day for her, not a bad life.
The semicolon she drew was a reminder of all the reasons she shouldn’t press the brakes on life. Missing the hopeful golden sunsets, the life-changing relationships she would come across, the countries she has yet to explore, the pleasure of making others smile from volunteering, and the awful but hilarious jokes cracked by her dad on family trips wouldn’t be worth losing to a rough day. What saved her that day from the dark demonic monsters haunting her that tried to consume and incapacitate her was purely her altruism. Selflessly, she gave herself another day to try and not make life infernal for her parents by leaving earlier than what was planned for her.
The semicolon symbolized the courage to disregard the permanent solution to the temporary problem.
Her heart, mind, and body knew that she was more tranquil seeing herself in the mirror as her punching bag than targeting and loathing others around her. Believing that it would be better for her anxiety to build a wall around herself since it’s something someone ‘strong’ would do. A coping mechanism for the emotional turmoil that’s criticized by many, is what made her discern. Long sleeves and her empty smile were enough to conceal the cruelty of the hungry, lurking dementors feeding off of her happiness.
She lay on the cold bathroom floor, as the exhaustion from the night crept up her body while she cried herself to sleep. Allowing all the pain and anguish within her to pour out after it got too much for her body to subsist. She asked herself to have hope, to Hold On because Pain Ends as she glared at her cuts and felt the wounds deeper than they may appear on her skin. Once she closed her eyes, the anxiety, stress, and living nightmares were all gone. She didn’t have to feel for hours before she woke up again, a craving now satisfied. From now on she was blank and numb. A black hole inside of her with nails, broken glass, and with words she didn’t have anymore. Wondering until the end of time- how it feels to not feel.