Pull back the curtain

Pull back the curtain.

Stand where you are, stare at the tiled wall in front, just long enough so that lines that once formed grids haze around you.

Hold up all four corners of the room with only your two hands, by the very tips of your fingers. Don’t let the walls go; don’t shiver or buckle or give.

Concentrate.

Pilfer any iridescent surface, sneak the light past the dark matter in your mind. Store it where it won't resurface.

Keep your hands up! Even if the fingertips draw blood and blister.

Is the door closed behind you? Make sure it’s closed.

Test your grip around the door handle as you shut it, but don’t let go of the four corners of the room. Inhale, let the dust settle between limbs.

Sit on the edge of the shower for just a moment, hands above your head.

Concentrate.

Now the door is closed, the curtain is drawn back, the colour empty and it’s cold.

Four tiled white walls hold up a white ceiling which looks down upon a white floor.

Three white towels hang upon white rods drilled beside a white basin.

One white curtain gathers within a white bathtub beneath the frame of a white cladded window.

Look now at your naked self in this naked room. What form and function do you have here? You're helpless, the knives in your back that you've put in their yourself, continue pretending to feel no pain. It's pushing the limits, challenging the fragility of your mind.

You've been doing this everyday now and what was once a dull stain on the edge of Stonehenge has bled into through the grain.

Do you want no colour staining. No show-through on white?

Then let the walls go.

Let them fall where you stand.

If your fingers bleed, stain the surfaces you stand on and tear the iridescent pieces from where you're storing them and lacquer the blood in a frost of light.

When the cold stops and you're not numb to the torn tissue on your body, burn that feeling into your mind so you'll never do it again.

Open the door.

Pull back the curtain.

Let the colour stain through.