CW: mention of self-harm, abuse

I would like to beat myself over the head with a crowbar

gently 

there’s this headache, you see, rolling down my arms red

its been going on all afternoon and miss samantha told 

me to swallow some pills or put a pencil through my eye

I couldn’t find a sharpener though

the thing about lead is that it snaps and the thing about

eyes is that they flinch timid little things      refusing 

to smile when they’re asked refusing to look pretty 

when they’re stabbed like no one taught them manners

my head feels lighter now without all that gray matter

no one should carry so much pain in such small a case

skulls are cumbersome things 

a jewelry box or lipstick tube will suffice

a woman is not meant to spill this way

tomorrow I will call my friend my bestest girlfriend

she will sew up all my flaps of skin and put a laurel wreath 

on my head and hand in hand we’ll walk to our crucifixion

your hands are so soft

my boyfriend tells me, like they’ve 

never had nails driven through, splinters only follow 

tweezers and sometimes after sex the crown  

of my head bleeds but it’s because I love him

I love him so much I kiss him back with a crowbar

gently

Elena Sichrovsky is an Austrian-Tawainese writer living in Shanghai, China. She's an active part of the writing community there and helps to lead the Inkwell Fiction Workshop. Her work has been published in SciPhi Journal, Black Telephone Magazine, and Planet Scumm, among others. Through her writing she tries to find the beauty in the terrifying and the terror in the beautiful. You can follow her on Instagram or Twitter.