When I was growing up, I had believed that addiction came only in the form of swallowing pills or drowning yourself in liquor. As I layed on the bathroom floor craving to carve into my own skin, I had never thought that I would be the one in need of rehabilitation. As I stand here spewing my feelings onto this paper, like the vomit that leaves my throat after spending hours on the bathroom floor crying, I have realized I am no different than every other addict. I am not above the drunk that wonders through the streets late at night, or the junkie that hides away in the shadows of an alley. My addiction is just hidden underneath long sleeves and, "I'm just cold.". Enslaved by a fixation and bent on the emptiness that leaves itself inside of my mind, just like every other addict. 

I have never intended to hurt anyone other than myself. I had never realized that my actions would scar those who love me, just as much as they did my own wrists. I did not aim to worry you when you noticed that I was still wearing jeans in the middle of July, or when you took note of the fact that I avoided the pool throughout the summer, or that I stacked my bracelets high when I could no longer handle the heat from underneath a sweatshirt. 

I am sorry, for the way that I cause you to panic when I don't answer your calls or I take a little bit too long to respond to your texts. I despise the look of dissapointment in your eyes, when I do not leave my bed for days. Sorrow weighs down your face as the new scars lining my thighs catch your attention. You drag your fingertips across the hills on my body, formed my too mnay lonely nights. 

I wish I could take away the agony that you felt the day you found razors locked away in my jewelry box, where charmbracelets and earings once laid. A once childlike innocence lived in that jewelry box, but it has since disapeared. It was obvious that you had tried to take away the pain that resided in my hollow cheeks, and kiss away the nightmare that created bags underneath my eyes, as you pleaded and begged for me to get help. 

The pictures I paint across my skin leave wounds acrosss your heart that I would give anything to heal. 

Love, 

The self harmer.