Betnii

I don't cut myself anymore. I haven't since last summer, when the sun was so blindingly bright it perforated through my curtains and stained my eyes. The cuts were on one forearm, deep and red and angry, all the way from elbow to wrist. I'd sometimes leave the flesh exposed, and watched as curious eyes flickered from my face to arm as we spoke. No one ever asked. When the arm was too sore to slice with scissors I'd scrape away at the paint and plaster on my walls. I'd carve deep shapes and lines like limbs from a tree, reaching out over my head and clutching at the window. The walls are painted deep purple now. I sat for hours and filled i

I won't be coming home tonight. I'm not leaving you, or running away, or turning my back on us. I'm dying. I've been dying on the inside for years; decomposing inwardly whilst remaining perfect from afar. I cannot stand it any longer: the outer shell is empty and cracked and now too must crumble. This disease that plagues me, an unidentifiable hell, has beaten me. And though I promised you I would never shy away, that I would never give up, I am admitting defeat. I am allowing the all-consuming fear and self loathing to spread over me. I am succumbing to this glorious madness. My mind has warped and all I see is twisted fiction. I despise

My parents bought a little two-bedroom house when they first got married. It was run down, falling apart, but most importantly: cheap. Two years later, my mother fell pregnant with me. She immediately abandoned her job for some plaster and paint and set about decorating the untouched spare room. She splashed pastel yellow across the walls, replaced the dingy carpet and kitted out the room with furniture. Sixteen years after my birth, and the yellow paint is flaking off the walls revealing the kiwi green beneath. I can peel back the corners of the carpet to reveal the worn underlay and half rotten floorboards. I can examine the fringe of my