bleed. 

let the words flow from you like a river run red, like the natural deficit from between a woman's legs, like a man on a cross with a crown of thorns and his blood a joyous hallelujah.

tighten. 

you can't bleed forever. wrap your arm—fist, eye, lips—in your choice of gauze (paper, a word processor, the underside of your Styrofoam cup), feel your skin shrink and swell, lose its breath, watch each drop morph from an ocean to a tear; the world to an island on the coast of nowhere.

clean. 

grab a swab (a pencil, highlighter, an extra pair of eyes), dip in alcohol (or the waters of sobriety, with clear eyes and light hearts), and rub across the wound—the page bathed in your blood. leave a few smears here and there; that pain means something, screams out to you from beneath your skin. some of that pain needs stay.

heal. 

let it rest; nothing ever got better with your dirty body neck-deep in it. step out of the pool of your suffering and into the light. rest there. keep your wounds in full view—of the sun, of yourself. this pain is not forever.

repeat. 

your misery will come again; in a boy or a man or a star that bursts in your palms. your skin will writhe and your flesh will tear and there it will all be—the blood, crimson and flowing, running like you're alive. like you've been breathing your whole life, like you've survived storm after storm, like you've heaved out of surging seas and riptides, like you've decapitated snakes and stood on the corpse the enemy. your pain is real; it breathes like you do. but it is not here to stay. the sun will shine. the wound will scar. the horrid mark will fade into your skin; turn into a story, something mentioned in passing, something not spoken of at all. you will be strong

but, for now:

bleed.