Lily pads

I used to cut myself.
Sliced angry words into my arms, legs, stomach, shoulders. Drew heart outlines on the left side of my chest with a tiny razor blade from the pack my mom had in her sewing kit. She used it to take apart stitches. I thought that if I kept doing that then one day I'd have the courage to cut out my own heart and make everything stop. No more being alone in my head. No more days of constant fear & anxiety for no reason. No more driving to some isolated spot to cry in my car because I felt like I didn't deserve to live, but not having the balls to just end everything and consequently feeling like a total wuss.

I didn't like all the weird looks & pity-face that I got from people when they saw the scars so I tried to cover my skin with ink. If I spent money to have art put on my body then I would be less tempted to mess up somebody's work. If I didn't cover myself with scars then the cutting habit would go away on it's own. It's faulty logic, but it's my own.
Every time something major happened I would head straight to see one of my best friends with ideas for new tattoos. He never realized how fucked up I was in the head. He thought I appreciated his art (which I do) solely for it's aesthetic qualities. I feel bad about deceiving him in the past.
So I would go to take the edge off by having somebody else fuck up my skin. The only difference is that I would have pretty sweet art by the end of it instead of ugly scars.
(I happen to like scars, still)

This went on for a while until I finally realized the reason behind it.

And now I have made a commitment to using art simply for art and not an addictive coping mechanism.

Which means that I will not have any body modification done for a long time.



Which also means that I have an overwhelming urge to pick up the one razor I had saved all these years.


I am too anxious to sleep so I will try to stay up & study in hopes that it will distract me from falling back into this habit.