Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at the tear in her delicate flesh. Her tender skin beaded with tiny droplets of red. Her little hands shook as she touched the tender wound, and her eyes stared in fascination at the sharp contrast of her pale white skin against the shocking red blood. Her little voice quivered across the yard, calling “mommy, mommy”. A slight form darted from the yard, rescuing her little girl from the pain of the seething wound in her baby’s leg. Her mommy dried the tears with gentle fingertips, whispering words of beauty into her little girl’s ears.

Now grown up, yet with lots of growing left to do, she doesn’t call mommy anymore. She locks the door and flashes the blade through the air. It slices the air, freezing the moment between ok and not. She feels the cool metal press down on her wrists, her arms, her legs. She tears miniature valleys in the soft flesh of her arms, watching as slick, red oil pours out creating a river of priceless blood. Stream-fed ponds of ruby lapped at her toes. Mommy, help me she thinks. Slicing valleys of hate, pain, depression, and sorrow into her body, so it no longer sits inside of her. Crimson rivers of pain flow out, bubbling thick and warm. Mommy, where are your croons of beauty now she thinks. She deserves this pain. She needs this to remind her. I am bad she thinks. With every tear she thinks of everyone she hurt, letting the regrets flow out with the pain.

Now in the hospital, knees tucked up to her chin. Do I deserve this, mommy? she thinks. Silver lines cross her arms lacing up her torso and stretching down her thighs. Am I bad, mommy? she thinks. The pain now bottled inside, comes out in the form of tears, liquid pain in the form of saline. Her mother doesn’t whisper words of beauty anymore. Looks of scorn flit across the room, coming to rest on the smoldering red cuts.

Now young, but old the; cuts are gone, replaced by thin silver lines, or fat silver worms crawling up her flesh. She doesn’t need her mother to croon words of beauty into her ear, she can hear them forming in her heart. I am beautiful. I am good. I love me, she thinks. Silver lines, now show hope; a dark past with a shimmering, hopeful future.