A different kind of canvas* Warning:Triggers + profanity*

 As performed and curated Highway Performance Space - Los Angeles

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, inspired by an article on self-mutilation. 

This is not a glorification of the act of self-mutilation nor it is a condemnation of those who use it as a coping mechanism. If you are triggered by blades, blood and description of bodily self-harm, please do not read further.

Tacks and kitchen knives paperclips and scissors, earrings under dress and nice shards of mirror, razor blades and nails and safety pins. These are a few of my favorite things.

I trace bloody smiles on my skin to console myself of the fake ones I distribute every day. Each one has a corresponding scar, a proof of my surrender to the world of appearances.

This is not a scratch. What do you think? You think that this perfect line on my skin is a scratch? No, this is not a scratch. This is a self-inflicted wound, personal art.

I cut myself. In mutilation, I find meaning.

Please, before you run to the phone and call a therapist, let me tell you something: I don't need help. I don't need anyone to explain why I do this, how I could go around it.

 I don't need YOUR help, no 12 steps for me thank you very much, I don't do well with numbers. I don't need to trace back thoughts or feelings. What for? All I have is now and now is bleeding into tomorrow, into the future.

Anyway, why do we have to dissect pain? Pain is.

Why do we cling to this sickening need to analyze? If we need to change ourselves so much in order to fit in, I say maybe that's the world that needs changing.

Fitting nicely and politely I say fuck that! Give me a knife and I will find the perfect spot.

Don't be scared... are you freaked out already?

Check out the other tools of my trade.

(Making inventory of items)

I have:

1. ü paperclips to let go of unhealthy attachments
2. ü earrings to do the job under a fancy dress
3. ü I have safety pins to combat dangerous moods
4. ü my trusted scissors to cut through crap
5. ü knives to slice boredom
6. ü tacks to pin down what ails me when working in nine to five undercover
7. ü shards of glass or mirror to mend a shattered self
8. ü (showing a nail) when all else fails, there's always a way to nail pain down
9. ü razor blades, ah razorblades the poetry of their sharp efficiency!

 My thrills are bloody and messy and loud.

This woman is full of scars. Womanhood is full of scars. For us, the world is full of mutilation, might as well appropriate. Because I won't assimilate.

Note that if a doctor holds the blade, it's called cosmetic; if it's a lover, it's called erotic; if it's you, it's called sick.

They call it a coping mechanism, such an ugly word. It's a form of art, you see, with a different kind of canvas, that's all.

It comes from a need to make beauty out of everything, even pain, especially pain.

I find consolation in the sight of my own blood. Sometimes tears are so insignificant. Salted despair, not enough.

I leave crimson marks of sadness on my skin. Sometimes, the heart heals faster than the scars; sometimes it's the opposite. You can never predict.

I feel that tingling in my veins at the very spot where I'm going to dig in the blade. It's kind of like butterflies in your stomach, except they are on the surface of the skin.

Blood, a visible evidence that I am alive. Bye bye, unbearable numbness of being.

Physical pain is a very cool mirror.

The sting is sharp. The opposite of my reflection in the world every day.

I carve my truth into my skin. The landscape of my skin is a territory that is all mine. No one to impose their voices and pollute my world.

Everything so quiet and still. A lot of people have problems opening up. So many people are like bruises: trapped underneath. Subterranean. I don't like bruises; they are true expression stranded underneath the skin.

Spoiled blood.

I believe one day the struggle will finally stop and the wounded will rise and conquer.

Till then, I will conduct my battles under the armor of my own skin.

 I say pay attention to what's written in red in the margin. I am mostly margins. No main text. I hide in the red-lined margins.

When I was in school you were not supposed to write in the margins. Beyond the red line was the teacher's territory, the place for their judgment in red pen. I was always made aware that I had to stick to the main text. I thought if I kept to the right of the red line, I was going to be OK, in everybody's good graces.

 I thought if I stuck to the main text, I would be protected. It just works on paper.

I am holding the red pen now and I'm not gonna let go of it! I'm not going to make it easier on anyone. Because it's fucking hard for me. Because in my own little isolation tank. Carving my own symbols. Like some mad cave woman.

It's kind of lonely in the red margins. Kind of scary sometimes. Scary, scar-ry. I write: don't bother, all over my skin. Don't even try! Don't go there! So that people can try harder to figure me out. Danger!

I hide behind barbed wires of scars in a property where trespassers are welcome.

Don't look at the price tag. If you could make the slightest effort to look beyond instead of above the surface, I wouldn't feel alone in my adorned skin anymore.

(Start singing again.)

Tacks and kitchen knives paperclips and scissors, earrings under dress end nice shards of mirror razor blades and nails and safety pin, these are a few of my favorite things.