The lines are crooked.
Four straight, even lines - or so i thought. But when measured with my blue ruler, the clear difference of half a centimeter shows. My ruler mocks me, its red divisions laughing at me, taunting me. Look, they say. Look at the mess you’ve made. Gone off and ruined another sheet of paper, haven’t you? I want to break it in half, break it again and again until all the lines are perfect.
I don’t care, I don’t care. Its a mantra now, twining around my head and in front of my eyes, blinding me and hiding those gruesome, mutant lines. But i know they’re still there. They are, and always will be, forever. Dancing around me like ragged puppets on a marionette string. But where is the puppeteer?
Me, they would say. I am to blame. Its all my fault, all of it is my fault. Just like it always is. It is me who takes the ruler and slams it into my other palm, me who watches the black ink pool up around my skin, and me who wonders why it isn’t red.
But no. That never happened. There are my hands, both intact, side by side. Like porcelain dolls, inanimate, unchanging. And so they shall remain, for i will not move them. I have caused enough damage, enough pain. No, not for me, oh no. Pain for the others who put me here. But how could i cause them pain? It was not their wrists that i marked, the lines perfectly placed, all in a row. It was not their pillows i stained with invisible pools that crystallized and hardened from the salt. They never cared, they never did, at least not until now. Now that i’m a bother, a problem, a secret to be shoved under the bed. I guess that’s all i can do, be such a problem.