My face is wet. But I can’t be crying. Why would I cry? I am too numb. How can I feel the pain now? My head throbs dully. I should have used up all my tears. Yet from somewhere inside, more pain wells up. Throbbing; flowing down my face in streams. Every ounce of fluid in my body escapes through my eyes until my sobs are cracked and dry.
Despite the numbness, I can feel. Feelings I cannot push away crowd through me; stand unrelentingly at the corners of my mind, threatening me. I don’t understand them; I don’t know what they mean. I don’t understand.
There is blood on my hand. A crimson rivulet traces across my palm. What is happening? The knife, also, is dripping crimson. I watch with morbid fascination as a drop falls from the razor-edged blade to the concrete beside me.
There is a small clatter as the knife falls. My horrified gaze cannot release it, although my hand already has.
What is happening, and why? The thoughts which assault my mind are slowly fading into numbness. So I sit. And I stare; my mind empty. I cannot ask the questions, but I must find the answers; this cannot continue; I won’t let it go on. But I already have.
Drip. Drip.
There is blood on my fingers. The trickle traces across my palm and down my hand; it drips from my fingertips to the concrete. The knife still lies beside me. Blood taints the ground on either side of me, but I continue to stare dumbly.
What is going on? Why am I sitting here? My brain strives to formulate the questions, but to no avail; the answers are more elusive still.
My only reality is the knife on the ground— and the blood, trickling slowly from my wrist.
I cry until I can cry no more.
