53. Poppy Wells

53

Poppy Wells

A ll my life, I’d been trying to fix the unfixable mess that was me. To piece together all the puzzle pieces so that they resembled some sort of functioning human being. Time felt like it was slipping through my fingers. That each second I spent pacing up and down in my small room was just another day that house had stolen from me.

I was going to die in that house.

My fingers found the back of my neck and scratched until my skin was burning and my muscles were aching and my heart was racing and the room was spinning and I couldn’t seem to stop. It was just pick, pick, pick, pick, pick . All I could see was the failure that was me. The faults in my smile. The scars on my skin. Each imperfection lit up like a beacon, capturing my attention until I was blinded by all the ways I was broken.

You’re bleeding again, Poppy.

Like a little red river.

Lost in the darkness.

Bleeding.

Bleeding.

Bleeding.

I eroded myself away, as if my body had been washed up on the rocky shores, limp and lifeless. I dug and dug and dug away at every error in me. Until the scabs came off and the redness started oozing, trying to escape far away from me.

I wouldn’t want to be inside me either.

I picked all the way to the root.

Deep down inside of me.

Until I could feel myself breathe again.

My hands fell and I stared at the art I’d created in the mirror.

All that stared back at me was a ruined canvas.

And maybe,

that was all I would ever be.