Hushed
(TW: suicide)
When I slit my wrists 12 years ago I wonder what sound I made.
While everything else is vivid, permanently branded in my brain, I can’t play back the sounds that accompanied my almost-suicide. All there are are echoes trapped inside my ears.
What happened in the background as I pressed razor to wrist?
Did I gasp with the puncture? Did I whimper or moan?
I remember the searing sting of filleted skin.
I remember my left hand quivering under the cut, my right hand barely flinching.
My arms turned from pale to pink to pale again and the blood turned from bright to black to red to stains on the carpet.
I remember how at first the incision felt good, tasting like metal under my tongue.
The cut was deep and raw and electric, like a tart pinch in the chewed up cavity of my cheek.
I remember the pain feeling like sex, a jolt that made me think about god, my eyes growing as wide as the sky above my ceiling.
Did I suck in my breath quickly and tightly? Scraping air through my crooked teeth?
I bet my heart raced and my face flushed.
I wonder how hard my shoulders shook.
I remember blinking blood and breathing pinched pain and for a split second, as my skin started slipping apart, it felt like an awakening.
The pain made my vision clear and my senses alive with fire.
God called for me to come home.
I remember my eyes tearing up because I was so happy and sad — and all at once — because I was about to die.
Tears sliding down my nose, leaving hot, salted shimmering ribbons laced across my freckled skin.
Did I exhale with a loud sigh of relief? Of exasperation? Of desperation?
What was said that day?
I remember crying because I was CRAZY and I had no choice.
I remember calling the god tethered in my skull, he who has no need for words or language, who with grief and shame and anger batters my brain into submission.
I remember crying even harder because he didn’t care about me after all.
Did I cry out? Call out to anyone?
Did I tell anyone goodbye?
Did I tell myself things would be better now?
Did I believe it?
Or was I silent?
I still wonder if my skin whispered when it was sliced open.
If it made a hissing noise like a carved red snake.
If the wound gurgled or audibly wept like my eyes did.
If I murmured reassuringly under the loudness of my decision that this was for the best.
I wonder if the smeared blood muted the sound of fingers sliding across my forearms, fingering the incisions?
What was the soundtrack of my almost-suicide?
A reel of memories with no volume.
I just can’t remember the last words of my body.
Even though they are always on the tip of my tongue.

