"Cut out of me, she was, cut out of me." Her mother waved a cigarette in vehement punctuation at each use of the word. "Cut", her mother said.
"Cunt", she voiced silently.
Telling the same old story to the same rapt audience, her mother's performance continued mercilessly, "Fourteen hours I was on that table and they couldn't get her out except to cut her out. Will I ever forget it?"
"Will you ever let me forget it?" Her own mute pathetic appeal damned the rhetoric of her mother's practiced repetition. She loaded the dishwasher with the plates and cups, sighing in silent relief for another coffee morning survived.
"I'm going out." Her bleak tone had been carefully rehearsed so as to reveal nothing. "I don't know what time I'll be back." A dangerous qualifier.
Impossible to predict, her mother's capriciousness made each utterance a stab in the maternal dark. Her mother demanded only two levels of knowledge from her: all or none. Both absolute, leaving her no room to manoeuvre except to hover in anguished sufferance.
Today, the nothing sufficed. She left quickly, exchanging pregnant breath for cleansing breath as she exited the apartment.
Very soon or much later,
she sat alone,
bleeding rich red razored relief.
A cut
before
bleeding.
* * * * *
Self-harm ranges from picking at spots to suicide. Healing the hurt that provokes acts of self-harm starts with listening. If you know someone who's cutting, ask them if they'd like to talk instead.
Suicidal? read this first
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Comments
~R
WAH, I hope it isn't all vile but somehow cathartic. Childhood experiences mark us but, like a cut, they can heal and the scars do fade.
Fusun, thank you for the encouragement.
Trilogy, good luck to your daughter. We do some Dialectical BT here, although there are arguments against group work for patients with eating disorders. I'm glad your daughter has stayed in the program and I hope they offered you some family therapy as well.
That is quite a sentence:
Her mother demanded only two levels of knowledge from her: all or none. Both absolute, leaving her no room to manoeuvre except to hover in anguished sufferance.
Blade slices unmerciful skin.
Not deep enough to cause blood to spurt.
Instead it forms tiny beads along the gash-line
Which chafe and then slur into parallel lines.
Cut, bubble, rise, blur, crust, scab, fade.
Tiny scars in a row along an entire length of thigh.
This ritual is comforting. Blood: warm and cheerful.
The line-up: neat like shots of scotch on the bar.
The residue: remnants of a disaster.
Ordered, safe, preserved.
I particularly love the line:
'neat like shots of scotch on the bar'.
I love the allusion: 'Neat' in its order and in its sharp bite. I wish I could rate your comment; instead, please accept my thanks and appreciation.
So I'll try again but meanwhile, I'll PM as well to thank you for your encouragement and for publicising me on your other sites - thank Heaven OS is so easy to use because I'm totally technophobic, though getting better!