The Words We Keep

My body forces me up out of the water, gasping for breath. My fingers itch. My skin buzzes.

On my stomach, a scab circled by hot, pink skin. It’s tender when I pick it off.

One by one, I pick every scab on my stomach.

Psycho.

Crazy.

Hypocrite.

Joke.

Better without you.

I move up my arms, my fingertips searching out little bumps and rough patches. Piece by piece, I dig out the imperfections.

Up my neck—

pick

pick

pick

my chin

pick it all out

my nose

get it all

just one more

my cheek

a little farther

my forehead

you’ll grow new skin

perfect skin

pink and new like a baby bird.

I get out of the bath, and the girl in the mirror is covered in spots.

But that girl isn’t me.

That’s not my face.

My hands.

I’m long gone.

Just a little more.

I continue even though the pain fills me.

Because the pain fills me. I’m here, I’m alive, because I can feel it, really feel it, right there on my skin.

A little more.

A little

more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more

—

The sound of screaming brings me back.

Margot stands in the doorway, eyes wide, like she’s seen a real-life monster. Her cry lingers in the air.

“I—I just wanted to show you…” She holds out her Harry Potter book to me, flipped open to a page. “I found something that I think could help. We just need—”

“Get out!” I yell.

Margot doesn’t budge.

I grab the book and throw it over her head into the hallway. It lands with its spine smashed, edges splayed out.

“Enough!” I’m still yelling. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be seeing me like this. “Enough with the fairy tales, Margot!”

She walks backward as I walk toward her, until she reaches the door.

“What you need is to grow up!”

She hops back as I slam the door.

I turn back to the monster in the mirror.

I pick

and pick

and pick.

I scrape myself away.

—

After, I toss back a sleeping pill.

And one of Alice’s pills, too.

They made her numb, she said. Unfeeling.

I take it without water, feel it’s rough edges as it goes down.

I fall into the easy embrace of unconsciousness.

I give in to the nothing.

—

I sleep for days.

Years.

Lifetimes.

—

Dad’s always at the hospital.

Staci puts her cold hand on my forehead. I hide my picked-open face under the comforter.

“Are you sick?”

I nod. “I’ll feel better after I sleep.”

Pink and pure and perfect.

Margot stands at my door but doesn’t come in.

—

Sleep is my only escape.

I double the dose of pills from Dad’s drawer and take more of Alice’s,

and I sleep

and sleep

and sleep.

Through school. Through practice.

Through everything.

Tucked in the fetal position,

I wait for rebirth.

Supernova

I am

disappearing—

a supernova

collapsing inward

smothered in black.

I

am gone.