a near-fatal attraction

A Story by Aura Inanna

but i was, i was so, so... interested. warning: self-harm ideation/attempt

what kind of worthless person can’t even cut themselves right.

maybe i went about it wrong, chose a spot too far up the arm, too far away from the thin-skinned perfection of the wrist. maybe i made a poor choice of instrument, an open pair of hairdresser’s scissors. but the semantics didn’t matter now anyway. what mattered was my weakness. i was so pathetic, too trembly and breathless and excited to even pull a blade across my arm. i dug in the tip of the scissors and dragged them across, scoring myself like drawing lines in the sand, just barely picking up the first layer of skin. it tore, shredded, lifted up in sick snowflakes against a red more like a blush than blood. i feared it hurting. here i was, begging for pain, and i feared it hurting. i tried again. i left two parallel lines, pink and puffy and dappled with red dots where i just managed to pop some blood vessels, but no rivers trudged down my arm, no sparkling droplets availed themselves in the toilet bowl beneath me. i figured the toilet would’ve been easier to clean; i could just flush it all away, watch it spin into a smoothie of diluted blood and the toilet paper i would use to stem the bleeding, and bandage myself up from the medicine cabinet beside me. all in all, it was a well thought out plan.

i was just weak.

my throat was parched. i kept asking myself, why? why can’t i do it? is it because my fingers are shaking enough to start an earthquake? is it because my heart is thundering so hard in my chest, my blood pumping to viciously and protectively that i can’t hear anything, can’t feel anything besides the burn of an anxious blush and the seemingly far away, fake pain of the two tiny scratches on my arm? i wanted it so bad. i wanted to see my own blood; i wanted to feel my own pain. why? i could’ve made these two marks with my fingernails. why why why?

instead of standing there, staring down at my own barely-blemished arm and convincing myself not to throw up--i realized i was convulsing, my heart was beating so fast against my ribcage--i opened the medicine cabinet and replaced the scissors, flushed the toilet to provide myself with an alibi, and washed my hands, my eyes on the near-cuts the whole time. i did it all this with a hollow and broken efficiency; i made no strange moves, did not trip or stumble or curse. i remembered to put on lotion after i washed my hands. i checked my wild hair in the mirror, pressed a finger against one of the sunken, dark circles beneath my eyes. they still held the disgusting, unnatural desire i had been pursuing. they wanted to make purple, to mix their ocean color with the red.

i exited the bathroom like i always did: the door didn’t lock, barely latched, so i nudged it open with my foot and strode out, across the hall, to the computer room. i lounged on the couch, ignoring the light switch, and pulled two blankets and my laptop onto me. i didn’t realize i how hard i was breathing, the long drags i took on the atmosphere, forcing as much oxygen into my lungs as i could, like i wanted to drown in it, wanted to pack my chest so full it exploded. i didn’t realize i was crying, faintly, tears like ghosts dragging their feet through the snow of my pale face. my body seemed to want to go into shock, wanted to curl up and die for no good reason. or for the force of my desire, i supposed. i was so interested. the pain. the color. the way i expected it to drain, my life, my thoughts, down my arm, pool in my palm, drip off my fingertips. i craved it, that elementary and idiotic pleasure.

i leaned back, forced myself to close my eyes, forced myself to listen to my blood, still where it belonged, until my entire body was no longer a gushing heart, until my throat was no longer quivering and tasting of bile. i opened my eyes. i was dreadfully calm. i opened my laptop. it started up slowly, like it knew my current state, didn’t want to startle me. my body was lead; my body was a sunken, sacrificed, undersea shipwreck, and i didn’t dare to jostle it, to inspire it into trying again. i could hope once was enough, but twice would never be.

i had a song stuck in my head. i sang to myself until i was sure enough of the words to Google them, and found a lyrics video, and snapped my headphones to my head and listened to one song on repeat until i thought i would never hear or think or desire anything again.