Bitter Blood

Trigger Warning: Abuse and Mental Health: OCD

Chapter One

I’m still alive.

I stretch my neck out of the window, and reluctantly draw it back, after the wind has slapped against the bruises on my cheeks, in a rather harsh way. The wind is lovely, until it isn’t. I find solace in the embrace of the breeze wrapping around me, until it slaps against my tattered skin. It is beautiful, if we don’t have it in excess.

I force my head out again.

The wind slashes against my cheeks and slides down my throat, uninvited, till I can’t breathe.

I never learn.

Gasping for breath, I draw back my head.

I hate being inside the car.

I feel trapped.

Enclosed in a sealed space, I observe every inch of the run-down vehicle, enclosed in an uniform layer of white paint. To me, it looks grey.

I try pressing the unfamiliar button to roll the unwanted window up.

I can’t, though.

I stop, roll it down again, then, roll it up, then roll it down.

This continues for a few minutes that could have turned to hours.

I watch the exasperated faces of my mother and father who probably think I am playing around.

I am not.

My fingers are numb.

But I must do it right. It just doesn’t feel right.

I count as I demand more from the button, abandon it and then with much agony, return. The button, now bruised, doesn’t work anymore.

I use it anyway, till my hands are grabbed and held. I flinch. They’ve grabbed the cuts engulfing the bruised skin.

They flinch as my blood stains their rotting brains.

Do my bruises cause you pain?

Does my blood slithering out push you away?

I feel tears tread lightly on the corners of my eyes, till they blind me completely, uninvited and unwanted, like my mere existence.

They let go of my wrists; not because the way they grab them hurts me, but because the blood stains on their skin would refuse to be washed away, and would linger like the stain of red wine devouring the white marble floor of my own house.

The car comes to a halt.

We’ve reached.

This is the worst part of the journey.

I have to open the door.

I have to.

I open the door.

It just doesn’t feel right.

I shut it back, trying not to look at the exasperated faces of my parents and of the man driving the car, working overtime, waiting to get back to his family who are waiting for a few grains of rice to feel like they’ve been fed.

Yet, I am here, trying to open a door that refuses to open, in the rightest way.

Who defines the right way, anyway?

I hate the car but I struggle to get out of it.

My mother grabs me by my waist and pulls me onto the floor. The car drives away before I can get up on it and get down in the right way. What is the right way? Does this ever end?

I spend the next one hour at the funeral of the person I loved the most. My grandfather looks different. His cheeks are sucked in. His eyes are shut. His false teeth are missing. He isn’t laughing. Why isn’t he laughing? Why isn’t he saying “Munnu eshechish!”

He always called me munnu.

He never told me what it meant.

I always groaned and hushed his questions, my eyes glued to his little tablet, that I grabbed without his consent.

Who is going to call me munnu now?

Who is going to cut apples after lunch, offer me some, and eat them without reluctance once they are refused?

Who is going to watch a cricket match on a Friday night, without any sort of expression on his face?

Who is going to wear those rectangular glasses left forgotten on the abandoned table?

What if…

What if I forget his voice?

What if I can’t recall his face when I’m at the brink of death?

How does it matter? I’ll die anyway.

These thoughts are overpowered by my brain counting numbers for no good reason.

I feel compelled.

I must count.

I count to fifty, then to seventy, then to hundred.

My mother interrupts my ritual and asks me to have Luchi and payesh.

I need to start again.

I reach a hundred this time without anybody’s interference.

Then, I begin again.

No, maths is not my favourite subject.

No, I am not doing this because this gives me pleasure.

My mouth actually hurts and is about to go numb.

I count anyway.

I politely ask for a plate because I’m incapable of doing it myself.

No one helps.

I try to take one. It doesn’t feel right. I keep it back. I take another and do the same. This continues till the unknown family members behind me, waiting in a line, get exasperated and mumble things for my ears to hear.

A plate slips from my hands and breaks.

My mother comes and glares, apologising profusely for my mistake.

The aunt behind me makes a scene. She’s not the one who has been cut by shards of glass.

It’s me.

I feel the tiny fragments of glass seeping into my skin.

I try to step back and avoid the mess, but all I do is step on pieces of glass, left unattended to. My blood seeps out as always and drowns the shards of glass.

I don’t flinch.

I feel no pain.

My mother notices.

I lie on a stretcher counting each breath.

When the nurse asks me my name, I utter it, count again, and then begin to tell her my name, yet again.

The sole of my torn foot is stitched, but the gashes on my arm are left open to be noticed. All that covers the wounds is my full-sleeve shirt so that I don’t scare people away.

Am I scaring my own family away?

  Chapter Two

It’s been ten years since my undesirable birth.

A fragment of the journey is still left. This, as always, makes me want to throw my guts up. I plead to my mother. She yells at me and takes me to an overlooked café at the end of the road. She hits my bottom rather hard, multiple times. She hits me till I cry. When she sees me weak, does she finally feel like she has a sense of control over her strange-brained, disobedient daughter? Or does she feel flickers of pity and the desire to hold me?

She never does.

As always, I am unable to throw up.

I’m glared at.

My heart quivers and breaks.

All I ever wanted was to feel loved and wanted.

At home, she yells and threatens to leave for good.

Is it me?

Did you, perhaps, want another daughter?

Because of you, I’m scared of confrontation.

Once there is one, only tears and the inability to speak find me.

You act as if nothing happened and cook me a meal.

Do you think that fixes everything?

The scratches you’ve drawn on my heart are deeper than the gashes engraved on my arms.

Chapter Three

Two more unwanted, undesirable years have passed.

I never wanted to be born, anyway.

When I mentioned to my father of my recurring thoughts of wanting to kill myself, he simply began to say I had to exist for the faces around me.

What about me?

I want to live for myself, but I can’t.

My disease-inflicted brain grabs a hold of me and counts every step.

Is something wrong with me?

I’ve seen my mother lock herself in the same bathroom that I am now in.

The bruises on my palm cling onto the overlooked sink as I gasp for breath.

Why am I like this?

I look at my face. It’s devoid of any expression.

I don’t care that I can’t breathe.

In fact, I pray this continues so I forget the lingering taste of mere existence and find myself in the depths of death’s embrace.

My family bangs on the door from outside, threatening to break open the door if I don’t bring myself outside.

I stare at a broken mirror and see my mother.

She had locked me in this very bathroom, yelling at me and crying.

I had felt guilty, incredibly guilty— for things I had never done.

I had only wanted to go with my dadai to mum-bari. I hadn’t meant to hurt my mother.

 Chapter Four

I’m surprised I have made it to fourteen. That’s five years more than the limit I had expected to reach.

I’ve grown out my nails now.

I pierce them into my charred skin.

I pierce them till the burning sensation is overpowered by my final sense of control. I watch as the area swells up and then leaves behind prominent, yet overlooked, cuts.

My family notices.

I tell them these are allergies.

Why do they believe me when I’m the one hurting myself?

If they get to know, will they hush this up or hold me in an embrace?

Chapter Five

Somehow, I’ve made it to fifteen, unintentionally.

The pandemic is hitting, people are dying.

I hope I am one of them.

But here I am, in front of a screen, with people I’m supposed to be in the same room as.

I wait for my turn to speak, hoping it never arrives.

But it does.

I speak, my voice quivering.

My hands shake like those belonging to my grandmother.

I want to die.

I pierce my nails into my skin.

They don’t know me.

They don’t know me.

I bleed myself dry while trying to speak.

All my effort goes unnoticed.

No one recognises my efforts or the pool of blood lying beneath.

After all, my wounded face is all that they can see.

You watch my open wounds, afraid to kiss my bleeding lips.

Will they call you a disgrace too, if they catch you strolling along the pavement, holding my hand? Is my convoluted brain too devoid of strength and filled to the brim with excess of serotonin for your arms to embrace?

Chapter Six

I wonder how I’ve made it to sixteen.

I step inside the wretched bathroom.

I step back.

I step in again.

This is a never-ending process of me counting.

Somewhere in the middle of my reluctant, forced steps, I fall, hard on my brittle back.

No one cares.

Not one soul that I love.

I recall an incident that occurred in fifth grade. I recite every word that was said, like I have been doing everyday for nearly a decade.

My brain hurts, but I recite every line that was uttered or mumbled beneath our breaths.

What is the point?

What is the point?

While I lie on the cold cement, recalling the incident, I’m yelled at for ‘my mistake’.

Apparently, this was well-deserved.

Is that real?

Am I real?

Or am I just another fragment of your imagination—

That helps you feel better,

Of your healthy brain?

Do something.

I might just kill myself.

No one helps me get back up, so I do that myself. I shut the door, open it, shut it back, till I am blamed for my beloved dog’s barks of distress. Then, I open it again.

I grab a mug that is seated on the sink. I take it and shake it till my hand hurts.

I can’t stop.

I cannot physically stop.

Do something.

Please.

Am I crying out to the deaf?

I throw the mug till it is unreachable to my sight, till I hear the crashing noise of the plastic breaking.

What harm had it done to me?

I see the towel hung against the door. The door’s paint has mostly faded. Who cares about that? Who cares about the ones suffering? I do, but who is going to care about me? Is my suffering not of enough depth? Is that why I go unnoticed?

I grab the towel in my bleeding palms till it gets drenched in my bitter blood.

Is blood even supposed to be bitter?

I count.

I count.

I count.

I let go, grab it again and count.

I count till the starless sky invites the sun after having proclaimed the hatred towards its heart. I count till the year ends, till I feel I’m at the brink of death.

Am I even alive?

Answer me;

Am I alive?

Why do you look away when I try to speak?

Is it because of the cuts on my hands that I have inflicted?

Or is it the tear on my lower lip devoid of your kiss?

It’s because of my constant need for validation and reassurance, isn’t it?

It’s the way I can’t speak without repeating every phrase that was supposed to remain unsaid.

It’s me.

I am still alive.