puddled

In the shower. Red hair sits hatched over my wrists, the strands like opened veins. Draped perfectly to demonstrate my anatomy, or at least as imagined; an indication of where my head would like to be: swimming swirling down the drain with the water dirtied by my skin. So much of me has slid down the drain in my lifetime. You could probably produce a life-sized sculpture from the parts of my body that have evaded me - my hair, my eyelashes, my skin flakes, pimple pus. My saliva into others' mouths.

I recall your forearms; their huge, vertical carvings that wield memories of your best friend running two kilometers to the beach to find you in fully-fledged panic. I had only just met you both and had no idea how to help. I probably couldn't have done anything to help. I sat at home bewildered. I tried to cry and couldn't.

Eighteen months ago I walked into Levin town, and thought how easy it would be to become part of the train. I could press myself into the steel and leave traces of me on the tracks, leaving no trace. I didn't feel like a person. I didn't feel like myself. I wasn't myself. I was the insides of you, a part of your organs and their revolting chaos - subject to your self-abuse and adopting it myself. As if I hadn't already swallowed enough into my own lungs.

Sometimes when I'm driving, I think of setting my route to chance. Especially on the motorway. But I worry I'd only sit again, this time forever, and that would be worse. I'm not sure if that idea floats around my head because you suggested it when I was sixteen. Before I had my licence, I berated you for it. And now I am it.

When I'm in high places, I feel like I could jump off them and my body would never touch the ground. I told you this on Friday night as we leaned off the building without barriers. I think there's a term for this feeling but I can't remember it.

One time, I said out loud that suicide is something everyone must have thought about at some stage. Not necessarily seriously wanted, but considered the possibility of. You said it had never crossed your mind. I felt like someone had prised my eyelids wide apart with their fingernails.