Originally appeared in Urban Graffiti 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CW: Self harm<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take the blade.
\u00a0
Her voice is smooth almost a monotone and the handle of her blade is cool against my sweating palm.
\u00a0
She watches me \u2014 my eyes directed to the left of the thing in my hand. I don\u2019t tremble but my eyes shake.
\u00a0
I am so afraid.
\u00a0
Look at it. She doesn\u2019t speak but I hear the command.
\u00a0
Looking hurts.
\u00a0
I look at it folded demurely in my palm. The pretty pearlized handle worn smooth where her fingers have held it. If only she could wear down the terrors that live in my skin with that touch.
\u00a0
I turn it in my hand and open it.
\u00a0
The action is smooth and silent, the way the light fragments on the thin edge dazzles my eye. This is probably what love at first sight feels like.
\u00a0
I run the flat of the blade across my arm; it whisks away a stripe of hair. There is no sound but there is music.
\u00a0
When I look up at her again her shirt is off as always I am taken by her frilly bra and freckled sternum.
\u00a0
She lowers one strap and I stare at the expanse of plump flesh cradled in her palm.
\u00a0
Now.
\u00a0
Her murmur is barely anything, need like this always takes her voice.
\u00a0
Her blade and my fingers create together, mingle her blood and lust with my fear and love.
\u00a0
Relief for her, anticipation for me. Yet my hands are steady as is her breathing.
\u00a0
Tonight it is not my turn but I am satisfied.
\u00a0
When it all gets to be too much, we know.
\u00a0
We know it in our own flesh and fingers and scars.\u00a0
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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