Anna Maria Keeps a Secret Journal
At first I didn't break my skin. I was just experimenting. I was hemming a skirt, and I had a straight pin, and I pushed it into my arm, it made a dent, and I pushed harder and harder. I could see the pin making the dent, but it didn't hurt at all. I pushed until I could really feel it.
So many things are nothing. That feeling is something. That feeling is different. It's hard to explain it, but the dent made everything real. True.
Then after that, when I was cutting up vegetables for dinner I ran the knife over my arm a couple of times. I slid it back and forth in the same place, sawing. I always started on the inside of my arm across the blue vein. At first I didn’t use any pressure hardly at all, but I couldn't feel it, so I did it harder and faster. I wondered if it would break the skin and what would happen if it did. So then I switched to the outside of my arm between the elbow and the wrist. I could do it as hard as I wanted there. I moved the knife real slow and then I speeded up, back and forth, until finally it hurt. I could feel it.
The first time my mom was sleeping on the couch. I knew she passed out because she always let the cigarette burn down to the butt when she passed out. The knife and me were alone. We were together. I shouted, "Hey, you want the potatoes small?" She didn't answer. So I pushed a little harder on the skin. It was good.
The red marks hardly showed at all by the next morning, and except for gym nobody saw my arms and besides nobody at school cares if you have a few marks on your arm or anything like that. You know, I was cutting myself until I was seventeen before anyone noticed. Why would they? They didn't give a fuck about anything that happens to me anyways.
Mom was asking me all kinds of questions, though. "How'd you get those?" she asked.
"Bugs," I said.
"Stop scratching or you'll get infected."
"I'm all right." I was all right. I felt real.
The first time I got blood it was with a pin. I pushed it into the fat part of my index finger and squeezed. I liked watching the red drop get bigger and bigger until the blood slipped off my finger into the sink. I rinsed my hand under the faucet. I squeezed my finger to get more blood. I used just a trickle of water so the water was pink. And then it was over.
Except that I couldn't forget how the blood tasted. I slipped a little into my mouth. I touched my tongue with the bleeding finger. It was weird because I thought it would taste salty. I didn't taste anything.
I mostly don't go with knives or pins anymore. Pins don't really do much. Knives are too clumsy for me. And too conspicuous. I like razor blades. I put tape around one side so I could control the cuts. I put a cross under my left tit once. He never touched that one.
The razor blades are neat because when you start cutting with them, when you draw them over your arm you can hardly feel a thing at first. It's only when you get deep enough that you feel it. The first line you make, when you’re not pressing hard, just drawing it real slow across your arm, it's like what I imagine a caress would be. Almost nothing. And then you can really feel it.
You see the blood and you know that you're alive. At least I was feeling alive. And I didn't care who thought it was bad. Where the fuck are those good guy-bad guy people when he's checking to "see if I'm all right." Mom married him so she wouldn't have to get a job.
He never talked to me before or after. Sometimes he hit me, which wasn't as bad as the other, and my mom never noticed, except that she yelled at me all the time and more on days after. It's like we weren't in the same house except for the yelling. They have nothing to say to me that I can hear anyway. I look at them and it's like watching the TV with the sound turned off, sometimes even when she yells. When I look at his face, when he's up over me, it's like watching a movie with crazy angles that’s on one of the cable channels.
Sometimes I do the serrated knife; the one I started with because my arm looks just red and I can do it more than the razor. I can feel it more because I can do it longer, but because there's no blood it isn't really as satisfying.
You can hardly see the scars. They're like ink in a diary that's been left out in the sun so that the spidery writing's got all faded. I used to know what each one was, and when I'd done it, but that was a long time ago.
Sometimes for a while they feel like paper cuts. You can never get a paper cut when you want one.
At school I try sometimes because I want to do it but I can't right there in the classroom. I've been keeping a razor blade in my wallet in that place where you're supposed to put the big bills as though I'd have any of those. I like having it with me, knowing that I can go into the girl's room and do it if I had time. The problem is there's not enough time.
He doesn't hit me any more like he used to. He smiles now and winks or that's what it looks like. I never know what nights he'll do it, and my room doesn't lock. Even the school bathroom is better than the one at home. But I don't worry.
When he's through, he leaves me alone. Yesterday, I put a smiley face under my left tit. It was hard because I have to use the mirror and my tit's been heavier since my period stopped. I'm not worried. If I'm pregnant, I'll just cut it out.