Afterthoughts

Yesterday I burned my arm. Now there’s a bruise on my wrist. It looks like jewellery; I wear it as such. I can still feel the hot sting of fire when I touch it. Flames must be frozen beneath my skin. How else could my touch make something burn?

It was an accident. I touched the baking tray, fresh out of the oven. Even though I withdrew immediately, I kept thinking about touching it again. On purpose. I disposed of the thought quickly, but it was vivid enough to scare me. How easy it is to be cruel to myself. How easy it would be to bruise my peach skin again. How I would keep a permanent scar from a knife, or a flame or a razorblade. And how it would fade a little with each passing day, but never leave me. How I long for something unchanging, something permanent, even if it is pain, even if it is a scar. A scar to proof that my skin is mine, that my body is controlled by me and only me. That I get to decide who stains it. Pain to prove that I am real.

It all seems so pathetic, written out in front of me. I see the black letters; I can touch my screen, and the paper. But I’ll never say the words out loud. The ones that tell me that I am weak, that I am scared, that I feel like I’m not allowed to feel bad about anything, because my life should really be great. That I am just a whiney bitch, and that I don’t deserve to complain. Nothing bad has happened to me. At least nothing too bad. I’m still alive. I still have a chance at happiness. Yet I can’t shake the aftermath of my bitter flaming thoughts. They’re like poison. And instead of saying them out loud, I can feel the sting of them on my skin.

It is bearable this way. Sometimes it is the only thing that keeps me sane. The flaming jewellery on my wrist is now only an aftertaste. It’s an afterthought of something worse.