My hand is trembling and I'm staring at it. The small razor digs into my fingers as I hold it, poised over the long scratches on my thigh. I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop myself. I had to. I had been crying again and I couldn't stop. I couldn't make the memories go away.

Four letters are etched into my skin. Her name. I tried so hard not to do it, but she is so deeply a part of me that it almost makes sense. We are now in each other's skin as well as hearts. Yet both can rip easily. It's as simple as a blade or an overprotective mother.

I put down the horrible tool to create a terrible crime and raise instead my scarlet feather. Dipping it into the crimson liquid oozing out of my shredded skin, I begin to write. The words are simple and pleading. It takes me a few minutes, the pain easing with each hiccupping wail. Finally the tears are over. My eyes ache with the salty wet still fresh in them and my leg cramps from being curled up so long.

The leather bound journal of cotton pages is beautiful. It's designed with ornate flowers and smells of sweet leather. It looks simple and pretty, a diary a medieval woman might have kept. Now I keep it, but the ink I use is easily found. Too easily. Thoughts of her rush back in and a gasp takes me. Immediately the feather is down and the blade is back, biting and slicing and eating into me. I cannot stop it, and I don't want to. I have to be quiet or I'll wake my mother in the room beside me. I bite my lip until I can feel the flesh tear there as well. Blood is dripping down my leg and new scars will form beside the others. Too many to count now. They crisscross and zigzag and pattern their twisted ways across me. Pages upon pages filled with bloody words, turned brown from age.

I hate what I've done, I hate that I've mutilated myself. I hate that I cannot stop. Does it make me weak for being unable to put it down? For being unable to hide from the pain like I used to? My books no longer shield me like they once did, and music has been stolen. What have I left when the nightmares wake me in a cold sweat, terror and longing tumbling together? I feel terrible that I will not be beautiful for her. We have still very long to wait, but I have marred skin that once was fair. I wish I hadn't done it, I wish she wouldn't see that I had been in pain. But so had she….

She will understand. My darling will know as no one else how it can be unbearable to live in this world without a little physical pain. Blood is nothing when you have so much. A little here or there won't matter. Right? I can hear my mother moving around in her room, I fear she's heard me. I drop the razor with small bits of skin on its edges into the small container and stuff everything into my box. Every secret I have is in it. Every beautiful memory, every picture of love, every painful page.

The woman in the other room ceases movement, and I cannot stifle the relieved sigh. Worry about the summertime and bathing suit weather makes my chest ache as badly as my leg. I hate hiding from her, but I don't know what she would do if I didn't. The very thought of being sent away to a psych ward for my "transgressions" makes me shudder. If it's a crime to wish to hide from pain you cannot control, then I'm a very guilty person.

Sound the bugle now

Play it just for me

As the seasons change I remember how

I used to be

Now I can't go on

I can't even start

I've got nothing left, just an empty heart

I'm a soldier, wounded so I

Must give up the fight

There's nothing more for me

Lead me away

Or leave me laying here

Sound the bugle now

Tell them I don't care

There's not a road I know

That leads to anywhere

Without a light I fear that I will

Stumble in the dark

Lay right down the side

Not to go on

But from on high

Somewhere in the distance

There's a voice that calls "remember who you are

If you lose yourself, your courage soon will follow

So be strong tonight

Remember who you are"

Yeah, I'm a soldier now

Fighting in a battle

To be free once more

Yeah, that's worth fighting for!

Bryan Adams's Sound the Bugle

The pain has eased tonight, for the moment at least. I can return to sleep without fear of losing again- the nightmares only happen once a night. Maybe I will dream of angels and wings and soft cotton pages… and maybe, of skin that was never broken.