Little Ghost
I don’t remember what happiness is. I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy. I think the only times I come close to being happy are when I embrace my sadness.
I think of my body four years ago. I’d knock back half a bottle of pain pills and lie on the ground in the dark, carving up my body and touching my blood and floating away. I always felt like their were two of me, a body and a ghost. A specter of myself would sit on the side of the bed and watch my body lie and shake on the floor. My best friend, my witness.
I’m happy now. I’m medicated. I was medicated then too. But now I don’t overdo anything. Now I make clean calculations of my emotions. I keep my blood inside my veins, though sometimes I still ache to see it.
Someone once asked me why hurt myself, and I told them that it didn’t hurt, that opening myself up felt like happiness. What kind of happiness, he said. I said, Happiness. Like throwing yourself out of plane as it’s crossing the ocean.
I’m better now. If better is measured in the number of open wounds in my flesh, I’m better now. Though I miss my audience, my the witness. I miss my apparition.
I didn’t feel scared then, because I didn’t feel alone.With her I never felt alone.
The night I realized all my cuts were healed, I felt more lonely than I ever had in my life. I ran my fingers across my scarred arms, and saw my specter for the last time, standing in the doorway, whispering, are you willing to sacrifice what you are for what you will become?
[© 2010 Sophia Nelson]
