Razor Blades Set Me Free

Suggested audio: Rock Bottom by Eminem

This was written “in the moment” as we say, jumped onto the phone to share a taboo behaviour I have indulged in since I was young then back to my movies! This behaviour is not as uncommon as society thinks.

I write these dark articles from a mentally good place (hence always dark comedy!) and should anyone have any concerns or questions please feel free to contact me.

We’re all in this together.

I sit there gazing with clouded over eyes towards the sun that never shines. The scenery green, serene and lush. At least for the grazing cattle anyway. They are blissfully unaware of the purpose of the parked livestock truck. Their one way ticket to annihilation. My curiosity won’t kill me. Theirs will.

There’s a strange urge coursing through my veins. Not to play or eat but a new desire. The barbed wire fence glistens in the rays, tempting me to walk over. I toss my pigtails aside and climb over the style into the field. I put both hands on the tense wire and press downwards. The small barbs dig into my skin and feel… Good. Whether it’s to keep livestock in or out, I don’t know, but this young lamb likes it. I look at my palms and I’m bleeding. A reminder of the death penalty they called crucifixion that I keenly learned about at Sunday school.

My barbed wire fence was a fucksight more satisfying than my slut whore Barbie. I pulled the head off it and burned it in the coal fire. Still couldn’t find that other leg though. No doubt a curious magpie picked it up for her nest full of treasures.

Time passed with experiments on surfaces and implements. Burning was boring, biting too blunt, dragging knuckles along walls and picking scabs was just plain messy. If I had plasters on my right hand’s forefinger or index finger I became the brunt of unfunny obvious remarks from boys at school. They haven’t had any experience if they think you can injure yourself vaginally. Or if you’ve seen the film, I really do have Teeth.

Time passed and I was blessed with the work experience of choice. The histopathology department with bonus ball mortuary. Ever since I was climbing trees I wanted to be a mortician. I saw things in clinical waste that would give you nightmares. Large refrigeration units stacked with meat unfit for human consumption. Dissection, help yourself Sir. I stumbled across the stock cupboards and with eager thieving hands took a box of disposable scalpels. Single use only with cheap plastic handles.

Brer Rabbit had a laughing place. I had a secret laughing place. My own den within the void of bushes. Covered, out of sight, and surrounded by porn mags from that guy across the road. The women within the sticky pages look like they’d been shot between the legs. Euw. They definitely need plasters and those obvious remarks from boys might just work.

In times of stress, anxiety and strange rebellion, I’d sneak to my secret place armed and slightly dangerous with cheap plastic handled scalpel. I sat cross-legged and made tentative nicks on my arm. A red line appeared followed by the slow build-up of a drop of blood. It then rolled down my shin and soaked into my sock like a blotted tear. I licked my hand and wiped away the evidence. Pressing hard with my finger to stem the slow flow.

“I fell”
“It was brambles”
“Caught my leg on a twig”

“It was a razor sharp scalpel… And I liked it”

And liked it I did for many years to come. Excuses honed to perfection. First aid course came in handy. Cuts and grazes, oh just shaving nicks and clumsiness. Everyone believes me so I hoped and if they don’t well I’m troubled and you know it. Scars appear more and more like stars in the sky as darkness descends. Like a prisoner’s wall with days gone by etched in chalk. My lines each represent a battle won. Can’t grasp the concept, well ponder this:

Razor blades set me free.

© Copyright: Sharon Lawson™