Square One

CW: theme of self harm and description of both intentional and unintentional self injury

I can’t believe what I see in my bedroom vanity

I bit my lip so many times

Stress has left purple tooth shaped scars scattered across my bottom lip

I’ve never seen before, but the sight makes my fingers itch for steel

To open up my old scars

I’d always avoided my face

Too vain

Too private

Too me

But I didn’t notice the razor sharp pinpricks of my teeth sinking in day after day after day until

Too late, bruise colored polka dots in the center of my lips

I want to sandpaper my lips raw and buff the ugly layer of spotted scars away

my pain pacifier now engraved across my face for all to see

How dare I do this

how dare my lip scar

I am a private person aside from creating this devastating billboard of self loathing

All that therapy and yet, here I am again, yearning for pain to bring me down

But this time I won’t let the ugly out through my skin

I told you last month, my teenage baby cousin, that the scars you see on me now are ten years old

I told you that because it is true and because I want to give you hope that all of your scars can be ten years old too

So my lip may be burning,

But my hands remain empty as I try to steel my nerves

thanks to you I am not quite back to square one