As I laid across the sheets, I wondered. I could not reason. I could not think. All I felt was what I wanted to feel. I felt the stingy tingly across my forearm, brush up my limb to my chest, until I shivered in the cold air-conditioned room. I never knew why I cut my myself. People always whispered in highschool when a scar would peek through my uniform, as I reached to grab a book from my bag. My parents thought it was a cry for help, a suicide attempt. I never wanted donna scarola dead. I wanted the being that lived inside me, dead. I wanted to feel alive, I wanted to feel anything. I felt hopeless and confused. I always stereotyped cutting as a modern day “emo” trend that represented a point and not a disease. I was happy as could be on the outside, but I could never get my outside to reckon with my inside. I felt a civil war abrupt every time I would feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed when my mom’s alcoholic rage would interrogate my every move. Overwhelmed when I was not getting straight A’s like I used to. When I wasn’t weighing in at my perfect 110. When my boyfriend told me to run that extra mile or when he raised his hand if I didn’t compromise with his intentions. When I was not the person I thought I should be, I decided to kill her. To dig her out with my hands, to drag her mercilessly because she did not deserve the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be a parent’s dream. A boyfriend’s beauty. I wanted to be the poster child of perfection. I wanted what it was I thought, I dreamt, I wished I could have. But because I always fell short, so did she. So I continued to hurt her, but the only problem what that she was me. I always ignored her in my mirror’s reflection. I was in denial of my own existence. I did not see cutting as an escape. I saw it as a murder of someone that had ruined my life. I remember sharply making fun of girls and boys freshman year who partook in this act of self mutilation. I vowed to never do such a savage act. But the only problem is, its not so savage like when you’re so desperate to crawl out of your skin, to deny your existence and hope for a better entity to engulf you and take you on as perfect, a new and flawless. I wanted to be free. The blood dripping down, did just that. Its poison escaped my dying corpse. My soul trickled onto my floor. The beautiful liquid pooled at my bedside. I glanced into its reflection seeing her. Seeing me. I saw what it was I feared, love and despised, all together. Melting into each others images, I felt at peace. Because I started to realize there was no us. There was no her. Only me, alone, hurt and scarred but ready for anew.