Page 161 of Under the Waves

My fingers found the back of my neck and scratched until my skin was burning and my muscles were aching and my heart was racing and the room was spinning and I couldn’t seem to stop. It was justpick, pick, pick, pick, pick. All I could see was the failure that was me. The faults in my smile. The scars on my skin. Each imperfection lit up like a beacon, capturing my attention until I was blinded by all the ways I was broken.

You’re bleedingagain, Poppy.

Like a little red river.

Lost in the darkness.

Bleeding.

Bleeding.

Bleeding.

I eroded myself away, as if my body had been washed up on the rocky shores, limp and lifeless. I dug and dug and dug away at every error in me. Until the scabs came off and the redness started oozing, trying to escape far away from me.

I wouldn’t want to be inside me either.

I picked all the way to the root.

Deep down inside of me.

Until I could feel myself breathe again.

My hands fell and I stared at the art I’d created in the mirror.

All that stared back at me was a ruined canvas.

And maybe,

that was all I would ever be.

54

Poppy Wells

There were holes inside my head.

Fractures on my bones.

Scars on my skin.

Little white lines.

Frail little limbs.

A canvas of purple splotches.

Big and round.

Fading laughter.

A sound so foreign now.

I wondered when I’d hear it again

or if I lost the very part of me

who could still find hope