Casey Gilfillan

My arm extends into a twisted wingspan. I squeeze my fist as I feel the tingling loss of blood, and I feel the prickling bursts, the sensation fleeting as my grasp loosens: a fruitless attempt to revive the flow.

I nod, the pain is sharp and sudden and everywhere. For a moment I am amnesiac, unsure and unable to remember the times previous. I realize the injustice my memory has done the sensation, and revel in the nostalgic physicality. Fire upon me, drilling down into my flesh and rattling my bones until they are but dust. I am pinned down, I do not fight back.

Here in this chair, leather or possibly faux, internally writhing and feeling so stupidly giddy and grateful when the biting teeth are traded for the lapping thread. The softer gauge delivers you from the brink, where you so often test the boundaries of what you might bear. It delivers me from myself, ripping through my skin. Ripping through me, it creates and marks and becomes something better, something I don’t mind as much.

After the first minute or so, my body un-tenses and rejoicingly accepts, beckons even.