cuts
have u ever cut yourself?
i can still remember it, i was in grade ten when i first harmed myself. and it’s all because of academics. idk. i got tired of pressuring myself for a whole damn year.
for context, i am not a genius nor dumb kid. never the top in the class but also never the last. I'm just an average student.
face to face classes came back and then boom. i started noticing my performances. i am so invested in studying at that time and can easily remember everything. i became one of the role model of the class. never got a failing score. and that’s how it started.
it all started in me, i kept putting pressure in everything i do, i kept aiming higher that my parents, classmates, and friends also started expecting higher in me. at first it was fulfilling feeling because i can still achieve the bars that i set. not until it became higher and higher. i still achieved it, but I'm not enjoying anymore. the happiness in my face every time i got perfect score vanished, the sigh of relief replaced it.
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i don’t know what came into my mind. i just started feeling so lonely and tired. lonely yet there is so many voices and words that is lingering in my head, telling me that i should do this and that, i should be higher than her, than him — than everyone. they were so loud that i can’t even find my own voice.
and then i saw the blade my sister used for her eyebrow.
i don’t know, but the way the heat of the blade that is piercing through my skin somehow made my mind focus to the pain that I'm feeling. the voices in my head vanished for a brief moment. a millisecond. so i did it again. until it bleed and the pain in my wrist is stronger than the pain my head is inflicting in to my heart.
and I regret it. and I did it again. and again. it was an never-ending cycle.
i don’t even know why I'm writing this… maybe to warn everyone not to do it. don’t even think of trying it for fun. because when i tell you that once you try it, it’s hard not to do it again.
did you see how i romanticized the concept of cutting your own flesh? that’s the kind of person i am now. and saddest thing is that i am aware and want to stop but i just can’t.
-lyn (18 yrs old)
