I cut my finger the other day. A wine glass broke while I was cleaning it, and the stem cut through my pinky and part of my wrist. I panicked when it broke, and tried to avoid getting glass everywhere. I tried clutching it close to me and it tore into me. I know I shouldn’t have tried to save it but I couldn’t help myself, I didn’t want someone else to step on it.

It should have hurt more. I should’ve yelled

FUCK

but I didn’t. I just stared at it. A screaming flow of crimson made its way down my hand and off my elbow. It’s not a warmth I expected. For a brief, fleeting moment I feel alive again. A friend stares at my hand and asks me if I’m okay. At least, I think he did. It all sounds like noise now. I can’t focus on anything else.

It’s been a while since I bled like that.

It’s been a while since I felt excited like that.

Another second passes and I have to focus again. There’s blood on the counter. A rag staunches the bleeding, at least a little. I have to retreat to my office and clean myself up

but the truth is i’m running again. it reared its head again, the ugly and grotesque thing that lurks beneath the skin. i stared into my finger and saw it writhing around, mocking me and misshaping my insides like always. surely someone else saw. someone else saw whats inside of me, and the horror of what i am

but the truth is no one did.

no one saw what i saw.

im not really sure whats worse