She crouched in the corner, just bleeding and slicing and I cannot tell why I found it inviting. Yes, I might add, it was wholly exciting. Her blood even looked like a rose in the pale room lighting.
What consumed her lay beyond me as I crouched to her side. She closed up like a flower, seeming she wanted to hide. I just placed a cool palm on her forehead and sighed. Why this girl, why this way, why should I waste my time? What was stirring inside of my heart like a beast? And why was I crying in time with the beat of my own heart, taut and straining to force my pulse fast enough. I looked at her face and I saw through the blood.
I saw fear and true sorrow, abject terror and pain. She unfolded and started to move the razor again. Her poor arms were a wetwork, her flushed cheeks wet with tears. Her tears mixed with the blood in the cuts, she endeared her poor self to my own pain, my sadness, my fears. Yet I did not move to stop her, I simply watched her sure hand. She made trails of torment then retraced them again.
What was it within me which made me begin to sing her a little song which felt more like a hymn? I sang torment and trauma, sang recovery and solace. And what do you think that the girl did through all this? Yes, she continued to rupture her fair skin with the blade which she held in her hand, which had begun to shake.
So I shut up and listened although she did not speak. I believed she had something she had to release. And it killed me, I mean true death, because I felt my heart break. To watch her here now so desperate with such beauty at stake. It was then that I saw it. Maybe I’d seen it at first, but I finally realized what my own pain was worth. I crawled inward, to bad things, to the place I’d kept sealed. To my own secret horrors I’d never let myself feel. It was stark and so cruel that I thought I would faint. Yet I withstood it, I had to, for this dear girl’s sake. My eyes closed, I touched her hand, the razor to take. She released it to my care and I gave in to my fate.
So I crouch here in the corner, razing skin with a blade. Such a small price to pay to see a flower girl saved. By proxy I’d taken to pay for her pain. Doing so she was freed to live a whole life again. I remember her standing, casting back a slim grin. As I took her razor into my own skin. No torment is ever met without price. For my rotten, my rose, I paid her debt with my life. And the way she was healed just confirmed it was right. Her two lips kissed me full on the first line I drew. Then she turned to the life that at one time she knew. My purpose was found and my purpose was true. I will rot, my dear rose, to bring rebirth to you.