CW: depression.
In response to those who romanticise mental health. Who support it only when it’s palatable, and clean.
- Teeth that tingle.
- Rancid tongue.
- Dry, cracked lips.
- Scars.
- Scars from spots and from scratches.
- Limp hair.
- Not showering for weeks.
- Sitting in the bath until the water is cold and murky and stale.
- Picking.
- Picking at flaws.
- Picking at eyebrows and eyelashes.
- Pulling out hair as penance.
- Teeth biting through lips.
- Licking the blood away.
- Bedsheets, unchanged.
- Pyjamas, unchanged.
- Skipping classes to lie in bed with the curtains drawn.
- Comfort shows for twelve hours straight.
- Ugly crying.
- Blood on pillows.
- All bark, no bite.
- Bite through the same cut.
- Taste metal.
- Punching pillows.
- Screaming into pillows.
- Screaming.
- Without noise.
- Don’t sleep – pass out.
- Sleep for twelve hours straight.
- Find it hard to wake up, again.
- Ugly.
- uglyuglyuglyugly.
- Running mascara.
- Not like war-paint, like funerals.
- Pick. Pull. Scratch.
- Wake up.
- Do it all again.
Image courtesy of Sam Moqadam.
