(more slam poetry woooooOOO)

(Also this contains some pretty triggering (not just for the meme) themes so if you're sensitive to suicidal thoughts, proceed with caution)

My brother tells me stories

When I tell him that I want to cut myself

He says that my wrists aren't paper

And that he had made that mistake

At first, I just stare forward

And think about what might happen

If I had repeated his mistake

He tells me that he cut his wrists

When he was my age

That he'd started by biting his guitar picks

Making them sharp, and driving them into his arm

By now I'm crying without sound

An ability I learned so that people wouldn't notice

Our sister cries like a siren

She has since she was a baby

But I'm alone often

Locked up in a separate room

Trying to make sense of what I felt

My brother collects pocket knives

His collection started when he was my age

After he had gone through too many guitar picks

He used the knives

Tears trail down my cheeks

My mouth quivering

My face burning

My heart breaking

Does he notice that I'm scratching my wrist?

He shows me his wrist

On it, I recognize scars

My nails dig farther into my wrist

If I wasn't a nail biter I would've been bleeding

He points to a tattoo on his wrist

He explains that that was where he made the first cut

The tattoo was a tree

He says, it was the tree of life

My thoughts race

Back to the stories I heard when I was little

Where I thought I heard

That my brother was sent to the hospital

Because he needed to get cuts made in his arm

To let out his anger

But now I realize

The events were out of order

And to this day I scratch my wrist

Always my left wrist

With my pencil or my nails

Whenever I see him

Him as in my brother

Him as in the girly boy

Him as in the digit boy

Him as in the boy who makes me feel like nothing

But they don't seem to notice

And they do not seem to see

My wrist

Just because it hasn't bled yet

Yet