This story is dedicated to my two best friends, Candice and Tiffany, and to all of the many people who suffer in what we call life.

The Cutting Board

Introduction

Her hands scoured the medicine cabinet in the bathroom for something sharp. Toothpaste, toothbrushes, medicine, and tiny knickknacks fell to the floor in her rush. She couldn't find anything and shut the mirrored door as the pieces of glass felt as if they would shatter onto the floor. She pulled her hair feeling as if she was going insane from the world around her, like someone was screaming at her and wouldn't stop, or like she was spinning on a carousel so fast and no one could hear her screams to stop it.

Her hands now a pinkish red from her hard grip on her hair. A tear fell from her face in frustration, as she slid down the wall onto the floor. The cold feeling in her heart started to begin to get worse and was now starting to feel like ice. She sniffed her nose still crying on the floor of her bathroom. She laid her head down on the soft rug that felt like a security blanket on her face. A shine behind the bathroom trashcan caught her eye.

Her crying grew fainter as her pupils in her eyes seemed to get larger as she looked at the object in front of her. Was it what she thought? Yes it was. A broken piece of glass, lying on the floor, yelling, screaming, for her to take it. She wiped her eyes as she got up from the floor to grab the piece of glass. It felt sharp in her hand, yet she held it firm. A tiny trickle of blood fell from her already red hand. She moved it just above her wrist as she felt it on her skin. Warm blood made its way out of her body, stinging at first but then numb after a second or two. The pain only made her think twice of pushing the edge down harder, so that she could tear her skin even more, so she could really feel it this time.

As the tiny line of blood still flowed off of her arm, she looked at herself in the mirror as the door of the medicine cabinet swung back and forth. She stopped it with her hand and moved it back slowly to look at her face. Her hair was messy, her eyes watered, and her face looking red and flushed. So many thoughts ran through her head, I couldn't even tell you how many as she starred at herself in the mirror, questioning whether it was really her that she was looking at. She knew at that moment what she had become, what she had done to herself with her own hands.

How did it come to this, how did it come to wear I needed to bleed, to where I needed to make sure that I was alive, to know that I wasn't just watching myself in some bad movie, how did it come?

Her blood continued to make its way down her arm into the sink leaving a trail of blood, resembling a river that ran with blood.

She thought back to when it started, when her bad habits started to occur. She thought long and hard until the memory drifted into her head like a feather in the wind fell at your feet. Yes, that memory in her head sank into her head and burned with rage in the back of her mind, only to sink into her heart and make it burn with such sorrow. The kind of sorrow that no soul should bare.

Her heart burned as she clutched it with her hand only to let out a gasp and more tears from her eyes. She closed her eyes and let her head lay on the door behind her. She could still smell the fresh blooming flowers, and she could still see the blue sky that greeted her that first day of school, trying to leave the war zone, she called home. She could see it in her mind, and drifted back into her memory…