rituals may make you late for work…be wary…

every time i say this is the last time…but as i pick at my old scabs, i wince with an audible moan of pleasure. i am back here again, sitting splayed legged on the small wall of my white porcelain tub, my legs draped in searing hot water…i am back here again willing and needing to be healed. i have too much that has passed between this porcelain and my body…these tiles have seen me at my worst and vulnerable…singing power ballads in the shower to me huddled in a ball scrubbing at my skin to the point of rawness…

the scabs heal slowly…they would never scar my skin but like a twisted child i pick at them with surgical precision, forcing them to imprint on my body like the riddling of shrapnel wounds…my blades sharpened to the point that they could cut air with a whiz. slowly i slide my favorite blade…Teflon coated (so nothing sticks to it) surgical stainless steel…under the purplish blue scab on my shin and flick it off with glee. dead and new skin rips up…straining to hold the plug at bay, bright red blood balling up at the upper left corner of the two inch scab…mmmm…god i love bright blood running down my skin.

leaning forward i ease my left bleeding shin into the boiling water…i wince at the sudden hit of pins in my cut, but i move down more, sitting waist deep in the searing water. red spider webs dissipate from my leg…floating in desecrating patterns from my shin…it looks like i dropped a blob of oil paint in water…beautiful swirling patterns are forming around my raised knee…circling it like a ring paying homage to my blackened knee…i feel spasms run up my leg as the pins circle around to my thigh…

its locked…my leg muscles have rejected the scab and it floats in the water like a dead cockroach. i almost expect it to start scuttling about in the water angry at my interruption of its daily Monday morning bath…now begins the ritual.

i need no light, nor do i need patterns to guide me through my ritual carving. the scars on my body pay enough tribute to my deviated mind…all i have to do is cut slightly deeper this time to plow through the scar tissue…cut cut cut….god…the hot water just furthers the bliss of a fresh cut…pins stab into my legs as i moan low and guttural from the bottom of my belly…

euphoric and blessed for the day…i apply shampoo to my dry bone straight hair and dunk my head backwards into the red water around my body…foam melts into pink cascades as it blends in the porcelain vat of my sins.

i have cleansed for the day, i soap up my body and brush it raw with my skin files…grained like sand paper, they leave little tell tale signs of rawness on my skin. having completed my ablutions, i rinse off and dress for the day. i need no bandages…the cold sting of the artic blast sends delicious lines of scalpels into my flesh…i remind myself to walk outside for lunch today, as i rush off to catch the metro to work…i can not afford to be late, i might be a sinner but i always come on time.