Reading inadvertently.

I trace my fingers over your body. The stretch marks, purple, around your stomach, the white, rippled, almost invisible scars around your wrists. Coarse patterns under my fingers. Your skin doesn't lie.

What has he done to you? Your gray, brooding eyes, thin lips that have forgotten how to smile, but are finally learning to again. What has he done to you? Your skin, it tells a candid story.

But this is like Braille, a foreign language to me. I am ignorant of even the letters, never mind words, sentences. The meanings don’t register. I am blind, illiterate, a goddamn fool.

And you become an accidental storyteller. Unspoken words, so forthright, that no words said out loud could match their honesty.

Silent sentences, more honest than those I craft painstakingly. As honest as scarred skin.

I hear a voice in my mind. Taunting me, testing me, testing my limits, pushing me, face-forward.
And it's so easy, it's always been too easy for me. No skills necessary, no risk-taking involved. So simple. Eat 3 small, spaced out meals, drink water endlessly, rinse, repeat.

Or hop on an elliptical machine for the next two hours, till the warm droplets of sweat drip down, in the crevice between your breasts, down your flexing thighs. All at once, the endorphins hit: a numbing, pleasant high. Rinse, repeat.

Almond shaped, mascara-laden eyes wink at me, tempting me like the forlorn songs of Sirens. Come, come join us. The models, the beauty icons of our society, how can anyone doubt their lecherous power? So tempting with their beauty. Tempting me to drown.

It's too easy to dive in, and theres's such incredible power in choice, in the ability to mold, control yourself, close your eyes and leap.

But once you slip into that cool, salty water, and you feel your torso grabbed by warm, slimy hands, there's no turning back. Siren songs cease, and give way to blood-curling screams. I feel my legs twisted by the seaweed. Seaweed in my eyes, my hair, and their fingers, their gooey fingers grabbing hold so tightly.

Take a deep breath, and let the salty water burn into your lungs, and as your consciousness fades, pray silently that your loved ones will someday find your skeleton, washed ashore.

When my child tears through my flesh and forces his way into this world, he will be shocked by the coldness of the air, the inhospitable environment that he will be forced to live in for the rest of his life.

Do you truly believe you are ready to be a father?

You yourself are worse than an infant, prone to uncontrollable bouts of cruelty, destruction. Then suddenly, tears burst from your eyes. You apologize, you know you shouldn't have and you wish you hadn't...

My son, you see him not as a child, but as a structural adhesive, a splotch of glue that will keep us intact. To you, he is not a human; he is a piece of genetic tape, gluing our DNA together.

You wonder how you can make it up to me, for the furniture you smashed, and for everything else... You claim to worry about "the three of us," but I know that in actuality, you worry most about yourself.

"What can I do to make it up to you, to all of us?" you wonder. But the bruises on my skin are still dark and fresh. This is not the kind of boo-boo that you can put a bright band-aid on, kiss and make better.

And he is a human. Not a toy, not a tool for childish games or manipulation. He is my son, not our son. My ultrasound, that imagine of my unborn life in black and white, you will never see it. When he tears through my flesh, emerges in the red flood, you will not be there to see his head coming through, you will not be able to hold him in your arms. He is my son. And mine alone.

I noticed her bright orange hair out of the corner of my eye. Her strong jaw, her septum piercing... she reminded me so much of Becca that my pulse quickened. I felt as though I'd seen a ghost.

She could have been an alternative model, a Suicide Girl. She could have been a Myspace girl. Instead, she was here, in Harvard Square, homeless and alone. She had scrawled, in red ink, on a cardboard sign: "Homeless. Need $$ for bus ticket."

I walked over to her, crouched down to her level and asked, "Hey... are you okay?" She avoided eye contact, stared right past me.

"I'm okay, could be better, I guess. Got a few flea bites," she casually pointed to her forearm, which was covered in small, bright red lesions that resembled acne.

I persisted, "Your sign says you need a bus ticket. So what happened, exactly? Are you trying to get home?"

She shrugged defiantly, a gesture of teenage stoicism. Her face showed no emotion, expressed neither friendliness nor irritation.

"Are you hungry at all? Do you want me to get you some food, like a sandwich?"

"Not too hungry. I got this." She pulled out a packet of Chicken-flavored ramen from her small backpack. "And you can do whatever you want, man. It's up to you." She shrugged again. I felt a pang of irritation at her unyielding pride, her refusal to ask for help directly. Again, she reminded me of the way Becca was, two years before she had even started... attempting. So many times I had tried to reach out to Becca, to ask her questions, but she had already blocked herself off, stone-cold strong, too strong.

"So do you have any food allergies?" I asked.

She now seemed, not exactly more cheerful, but slightly less robotic; her words and gestures appeared more energized. "I hate vegetables," she said matter of factly, "And I can't eat anything with cheese... it gives me the runny shits."

When I brought her sandwich 20 minutes later, she smiled and said, "Cool, thanks, man."

"Sure. Before I go, I have some advice for you." Suddenly, she looked defiant again, as though ready to shield herself from hurled insults, insensitivity, or adult presumptuousness. Her mouth was a firm line. "My sister, her name was Becca, ran away from home a few times. Well, she made this sign, it said, 'Ninjas killed my parents. Need money for Kung-Fu lessons.' And people thought it was really funny and sometimes gave her money."

"Thanks, man, I'll have to try that." She turned her sign over, pulled out a sharpie, and started scribbling.

Then I stood up and walked home, leaving my sister behind.

Some days, I see blood everywhere. On beautiful faces, clumped into strands of your dark hair, on your soft breasts and thighs. Some days, it's all I can think of.

I am not homicidal. I am not suicidal. I would never want to seriously hurt you. I do not fantasize about gun shootings, swords, or deep, festering wounds. God, even violence in films sometimes disturbs me.

So why won't these thoughts leave me? Everywhere, blood. I want to take a paper-thin razor and gently glide it down your silky back, a tiny red stream flowing through my fingertips. I want to feel that liquid warmth drip to my naked chest when you are inside me, stain the satin sheets.

You wonder why I can never climax. Curiously, you try to poke and prod in conversation, question me about my most illicit sexual fantasies. But how could I ever tell you?

Would you let me penetrate you with thin needles, tiny red droplets rolling down your taut stomach? Would you let me pierce, over and over again, till our skin is tinted with pink? The thought alone makes me shiver. Would you let me?

Some days, I see crimson everywhere. But how could I ever tell you, my love?

nitrous oxide

Friday night, my friends convinced me to try nitrous oxide. Laughing gas. These things are not at all unusual at Senior House; kids pass out acid like chewing gum, they sip beer like Pepsi, and still somehow manage to be some of the most talented engineers, researchers, and mathematicians in the country. At least the ones who don't flunk out.

Normally, I wouldn't be interested in this kind of adventure, but we were all lounging around in Sarah's suite, enjoying some hookah and listening to Beck (not at all fitting to the atmosphere). Someone pulled a can of nitrous out, and everyone was so interested in doing it, that the idea of saying no seemed almost uncomfortable. I wouldn't say that peer pressure was involved, exactly, but there was certainly some peer influence. Back home at Wellesley, you can be assured my friends would tell me not to "kill my brain cells." I love my Wellesley friends, but sometimes their company can be boring if not stifling.

The gas seemed colder than expected when I inhaled it deeply and closed my eyes. Everything suddenly began to pulsate, the whirring whoosh of helicopter propellers throbbed in my ears. When my eyes opened, the world looked like a kaleidoscope, yet beating like cardiac cells. It was too much all of a sudden. I closed my eyes and pressed both palms against my moist face. "Amy, Amy..." I could hear them calling my name, and as though someone hit a fast-forward button in my mind, their calling sped up, faster and faster, the noises rang in my ears like high pitched screams. I groaned. Another deep breath of oxygen. And the reverberating receded, as quickly as it had begun. Back to earth, back to earth.

I looked around. My friends on couches, giggling, and the sweet scent of hookah everywhere. The world was crystal clear and crisp once again.