Pretty Pink Scissors

*Trigger Warning*

Physical Violence, Gore, Abuse, Mental Health, Self-harm, Weapons & Identity Crisis

The compulsive urge to scratch, claw, and pull at your skin as the appearance in the mirror mocks your existence. You stand in front of your mirror, peering into the reflection, trying desperately to like what you see in the reflection. The constant nitpicking and degrading of the body that was made specifically for you was not something you thought you’d grow up and do. The killing of your body is the only thing that makes everything seem real; the starving and vomiting is what makes you turn to bone right before your eyes as you drift deeper into the mirror…deeper into your oppressive thoughts that cloud your vision.

Looking back on everything that’s ever happened makes you wonder if you deserve to starve yourself to the brink of death. It makes you wonder if everything you’ve ever felt is just a reflection of your hidden thoughts. Self-harm isn’t exactly a foreign topic in today’s world; everyone at some point in their lives decided that the only way to cope with the loudness of their lives was through killing and harming their bodies to finally achieve the silence and peace they’ve craved for so long.

You fight back the tears that spring to your eyes as you battle the solemn feelings that overcome your entire being. As you look in the mirror, you just cry and scream. You scream, “No, don’t!” fighting to put the scissors down, but just like every time before, you lose the battle and succumb to the peace you feel when the scissors reach your pale skin. While you feel relief in the moment, the petrified state you seep into is what makes you realize just how broken you are.

Pulling apart your skin, cutting veins with your pretty pink scissors as you sit in your own blood, shriveling up in a ball on the carpet floor. The blood dries onto the carpet. The scissors have dry blood on them. You’re covered in the red, bloody mess that you created. You look up to see the first hour of light spill into your room. It’s warm and comforting. You stand as you remember the tragic events that happened last night. You walk to the bathroom, turn on the shower, and wash the blood down the drain, preparing for another day of fake smiles and happy eyes.

You sit at the table daydreaming about what it would feel like to disappear. You wonder if disappearing is the better option. If vanishing without a trace would bring you the peace you’ve craved for so long. Would they miss you? Would they go looking for you? Would they even care or be bothered to cry? Those are the questions you ask yourself when zipping up your bag and climbing out the window, ready to face the world, because nothing can be as bad as the person you truly are, the person you hide from those in your life. You say goodbye to your stuffed animals, give one more look to your childhood room, and run as fast as you can, jumping the brick wall and running on the cement sidewalk until you find what you’re looking for or what you’re hoping to feel. Will you feel scared, lonely, or will you feel free and happy? Hopefully, the feelings of freedom and peace wash over you as you run down the long road until you reach the train tracks. You look one more time at the life you’re choosing to leave behind and walk peacefully into the morning.

Your alarm goes off as you are jolted from your sleep and your dreams. Warm tears leak from your eyes, sweat traces your forehead and soaks your bed as you get up to start your day. “It was all a dream, that’s all, nothing more,” you say to yourself as you walk back into your room. You stop short and look down to see dark red blots on your floor and those same pretty pink scissors laid gruesomely on the floor. You stumble back, landing hard on the floor with a thump. You scoot backward as if to back away from something that scared you. You woke from a dream, only to find out that the only real part of your dream was the scariest of all.

You go to the kitchen, pull out the bleach and some cloths, and make your way back to your bedroom. As you drop to your knees, you begin to scrub at the blood on the carpet. The stains eventually lift, and you sit back on your feet, sighing in relief. You feel as much relief as you can before the realness of last night comes back into focus, and you let out a heart-shattering scream and begin to sob loudly on the floor. It feels as if your entire being is breaking over and over again as you continue to sob and sob until you feel sick. You start to calm down, coming down from your panic attack and crawling back into bed to feel some peace in this void of darkness that has fallen into your life.

Somewhere in your life, you will come to the realization that the people in your life will disappoint you at some point. They come into your life, whether it be a friend or a significant other, and once they come to the conclusion that you’re no longer worth it to them, they take the love they gave you and walk out of your life as if you mean nothing. It makes you grasp onto anyone in your life that truly does care instead of focusing only on the people who decided to leave. You sit with your thoughts for a few minutes and snap out of it when this figure appears in front of you, looming and circling you like prey. You look up to see a version of you from years ago. It startles you, causing you to flip out of the chair you were sitting in. You stand eye to eye with this strange version of yourself. It is a perfect replica, but it is more broken and frail looking. She is basically skin and bone, with skeleton-like features, dark hair, tired eyes, and when she finally talks, she sounds shrill and high-pitched. All she says is, “No, don’t,” and goes just as quick as she came. You stand bewildered and filled with confusion as to what she meant by that. Without reading more into it, you return to your room, passing the mirror that holds your most fragile truths. Walking backward until you stand before your mirror, you prepare yourself for the mental battle you face when you work up the courage to look into the glassy, clear mirror. Looking in, you remember why you never stop to get a look at yourself when you leave for school or leave to go out with friends because then you are forced to look at a woman who has been battered and bruised by the ones she’s loved the most.

If anyone ever entered your mind, they would see memories of people you loved and cared for, memories of those same people who hurt you the most. Those people who caused you to pick apart yourself as you cut yourself into a million pieces to be everything they wanted you to be. You wanted to be more than what people assumed you were, you wanted to be more than what people thought you were like. You just want more, you want real, you want consumption, but most of all, you want to not take the disrespect you’ve tolerated for so long by people who never knew the real you. You gave them a false version of yourself to bury the real woman that looked back at you from the mirror, a mere perfect replica but a different person altogether.

Scratching, clawing, bleeding, disappearing, not existing as you sink back into the void of people’s brains, becoming only a memory amongst millions and only a person amongst billions.

You choke on your own blood as the knife digs deeper into your abdomen. You bleed out on the floor, flooding the room that once had so much life in it. You fall to the floor, clawing at the knife, rapidly trying to release the beastly grip it has on you. You’re crying, looking up to find the one responsible for stabbing you. Through the mists of tears that line your eyes, you see the real one responsible for your pain…you. You watch the broken version of yourself you saw earlier this day, standing still, looking pale, sweaty, and dead with white eyes and comatose skin. Instead of crying and screaming, you wipe the unfallen tears from your deep oceanic eyes and find comfort in the brokenness of yourself as you pull the knife from your abdomen and stand up, maintaining eye contact with the girl who broke you from the inside out, the girl who made it impossible for you to ask for help.

She steps closer to you, you step back. You feel a hard object come in contact with your back and see that you’ve made it fully across your room to the wall. Without hesitation and without warning, she shoves her skeleton fingers into your chest cavity and grasps your beating heart. With her other hand, she puts yours to her chest. She shoves yours into her chest, and instead of feeling a heart, you feel nothing. It’s cold and empty. It’s like a slick basement with the air conditioning on full blast. She removes her hand, and then suddenly, you feel lightheaded, sick, and empty. You look at her hand and see your heart in her hand, still pumping and still alive. You aren’t dead, just tired, fighting to keep your eyes open. You watch as she shoves your heart into her body and comes to life. Her once pale, lifeless body has come to a nice warm white. Her once white eyes are now blue with yellow starbursts.

In that moment, you understand what has happened. You are living for you, you are now the person you’ve hidden from the world, kept her in a dark, slick basement with the AC on, desperate to climb out and feel the light and warmth on her skin.

The body falls to the ground, she turns to dust and flows out the window into the cold winter breeze and frees herself from the shackles and chains she was confined to for so long. You walk around your empty house taking in this new sense of life. It’s quiet so you can hear the rapid beating of your heart as it pumps blood to the body and fills it with life. Taking in your surroundings you revel in the feeling of peace that washes over you like a cool breeze on a hot day. You feel alive and free, two things you haven't felt in so long. Walking back to your room you see those pretty pink scissors laying lifeless on the table. You pick them up and throw them in the trash, breathing in a sign of relief as you put down your weapons and end the war that's been waging in your heart for so long. Lying in bed that night you go to bed with a light heart, closing your eyes not dreading sleep because you now know the evil is gone…or is it?

Sometimes other people’s hearts work well with another body, but when it doesn't it rejects the new habitat.

Waking up to a wet feeling, you turn on the light to see your gray bedsheets soaked in a bright red liquid. You plunge your hand into your chest to feel that same empty void. You let out a blood chilling scream just as those pretty pink scissors are stabbed into your eye and rapidly stabbed into the beating heart laying morbidly on shattered glass from the mirror that held all your secrets. A shadow emerges from the mirror, takes the pretty pink scissors from your heart and walks slowly back into the mirror, leaving only chaos and absence.