Fear and Blood (not the fear of blood.)

I think I have a preoccupation with blood.

I'm sorry.

That's creepy.

Really, though.

I love pilot g-2s (the pens). I love the way they write. Ask me to describe it, though, and the first thing I think is that it's like you're writing in your own blood.

I don't know what it is that intrigues me.

It might be the link between life and death.

The human connection.

We give blood to others to save lives, donating a portion of the cells we need for ourselves.

I associate blood with death even as it pumps through the veins in my fingers as I type this.

I look at the scene of a car accident to see if any blood stains the pavement underneath scraps of metal and swarming policemen.

I'm looking for signs of life, and seeing blood there makes it more bleak than it already was.

I used to be afraid of losing blood. When I was a kid, I would pick scabs out of habit, then suck on the wound, taking back that little ruby teardrop into my body, thinking it would replenish my bloodstream.

Red is vital.

It is life and anger and fire and pain.

Red is the color of the muscle that keeps me alive, pushing life into me.

It is the color I see in my peripheral vision when I'm trying not to scream from frustration.

Red is the color staining the knees of that one pair of jeans I keep along with my scars to remind me that life doesn't have to be comfortable to be worth it.

The lines I can see in the crook of my elbow are blue, but I think of blood as red. 

Inside my veins, the blood is me. When it runs down my drain after I nick the back of my knee with the razor, it belongs to nature. I lay no claim to the red, even if it was keeping me alive just a moment ago. It's not mine if it's diluted by the water that sluices down my body and back toward the earth.

Today I accidentally sliced my thumb on the scissors I confiscated from my best friend, but I was too busy watching that crimson bead well up between the layers of skin to worry about the pulse that throbbed beneath it.

I don't think I would cut to feel.

I'm just scared I would cut to watch myself bleed.


--Alis