Scars and Marks

The scars on my wrists and the marks on my arms tell a story I'm now willing to share.

The moment I get home from school, I go to my room and put my headphones on, blocking out the world from anything and everything. I cry a lot, the tears never ending, and the hurt scarred on my wrists. I say I'm clean, free from whatever mental illness I had, but I'm not, it comes back like an unexpected storm, the umbrellas still out and the pool uncovered.

Music is my lifeline, and not in some cheesy romance way. If I don't listen to music, I feel empty. Every morning, I put on a playlist. The moment I come home, after lunch, breakfast, in between classes, during classes, the bathroom, all the way to midnight, sometimes I skip class just to pop in some AirPods and wait for the bell to ring for my next class.

I go out a lot, scared to let my parents know what I'm feeling, scared to wear short sleeves or tank tops around them anymore. It hurts, it hurts not to be able to talk to your parents on that close of a way. I talk to friends but never show, hint at therapists, but they look past it, saying it's something everyone does, that it's a stage. I close myself away, locking the door and throwing away the key, hiding in the place I made my dungeon.

I'm too scared to open up to people, scared that they'll think of me as weird when it was a thing I did on the whim, I don't do it for attention. Don't do it for guys or any shit like that. I do it to distract myself from what's wrong. The sharp sting of the blade, the crackle of the lighter. I've tried everyone, and I'm scared.

So I continue to hide in my room, lock myself in this hellhole of life, and wait... just wait till I finally reach out.