One needle at a time

When the curtains fall and the lights go off?

She sits alone on the floor, holding her knees close to her face, her arms wrapped around them. The silence around becomes noisier by the minute and she shuts her ears with her hands to avoid hearing it. But the silence only grew louder. Inside her somewhere, she felt heavy. It was the kind of weight, she'd been carrying for a while now but could never quite get used to. She wrapped her arms around herself again and pulled her knees closer to her face so she could rest her nose on them. This cocoon made her feel safe. She would to cocoon herself this way for this lifetime, at the very least.

Slowly, she used her right hand to reach out to the shiny metallic ray of hope that lay next to her. She picked up the needle and jabbed it into the wrist of her left arm, releasing spurts of red that were strangely comforting. She continued to poke herself, one needle at a time.

She watched closely the redness of the blood. Closely, but expressionless. Inside her somewhere, the weight didn't seem all that heavy now. The red comforted her, one needle at a time.

She could sit here in her cocoon for a lifetime, one needle at a time.

Until the lights come on again and the curtains rise and no one will ever know how she lost a part of herself every day, one needle at a time.

~