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I sat still like Venus De Milo with my breasts scarred this way and that way, the pink and white lines wriggling their way under my skin. It was hard to breathe when there was a lump in my throat. No man would ever touch me in passion; no man could ever look at my breasts with anything but pity or with clinical unconcern. On the side of one there was the open mouth of a wound, tasting the air with pink edges, sinking back into my flesh. Around my feet my clothes lay. The scratchy white towels lay out on the floor, waiting for the touch of my body, waiting for me to pretend I wasn't trying to wipe off the touch of self-hatred.

In my shoes they lay wrapped in their black and white wax paper. Double edged razor blades that winked up with smiling mouths. Somehow it makes one's breath catch, just knowing that you have an appointment with a lover and that you *will* be able to make it. They will hold your hand and the blood will run down red and glistening.

I made sure the water was hot, the steam rising in white puffs. My legs were unshaven and I wanted them smooth and naked, free of unnecessary hair. I would never be able to cut a grid of red lines across my legs unless they were long Barbie doll legs attached to dainty feet with little blue painted nails. I stood naked for a moment, feeling the heaviness of my flaws. The rough spot over the knuckle of my right hand and the way that my hair curled free and fierce.

The water was hot across my legs, a heated balm that relaxed and made the world straighten for a moment. No time was to be wasted. Immediately my fingers were reaching into my shoes for one blade, feeling the waxy paper covering the silvery body. Unwrapping it with shaking fingers. A bride waiting for her bridegroom. Waiting for his soothing touch.

The skin of my forearms had remained untouched, *immaculate* for over six months and they were waiting for the first touch. My flesh parted underneath the blade easily, leaving behind a white line. Smooth and waxy, the first droplets of blood still not sprung up. Another waxy line and then another. A barcode that could not be ever read by any machine. Blood sliding down sluggishly, raining down onto my thighs and into the water. My inner forearm was one line of lines that bled red and I turned towards the other side. Testing the blade across the skin covered with slight hair.

The water was quickly turning a rusty brown. Not pink but brown. There is nothing ever quite as beautiful as seeing yourself be proven human, to see yourself bleed and smile. I held my arm under water and moved it back and forth, watching the blood spill out into the water.

When I felt satisfied and the cold had crept out of my heart I stopped. Wrapped my blade back in its waxy paper and hid it back into my shoe. I wrapped the black shirt I had been wearing around my arm and tried to stop the bleeding. The bleeding was for me and for me only. It wouldn't do to come out into the hallway with the blood dripping down my arms.

I unstoppered the bathtub and got out, my skin breaking out in goosepimples. The scratchy white towels rough against my feet. I dried myself and got dressed, put my black shoes on. When I stepped out into the hall of the ward the blood was making dark shadows on the arms of my pajamas.