Libération

The moment he stepped out of the door, leaving it to close agonisingly slow and deliver an ashamed click, she got up and dried her tears. Jumping to her feet, she raced to the bathroom – an uncontrollable urge to see her face as if it had been drastically altered within the last hour since she’d last checked her hair.

The same face she had beheld for years appeared before her sight, eyes slightly redder, hair messier, lips puffy from the collagen that was tears. Slowly lifting her hands to touch her face, she traced her fingers over the gentle contours of her face, recalling the places where he had once occupied – he and the others before him, staking their claim on her but soon relinquishing their ownership. Then she had an epiphany; it was her, this hateful detestful face that brought her downfall every time.

Every single one of them, the silver tongued fools – they never loved her, instead they loved her. Oh how they spoke about how beautiful she was, the thoughts choked her like a string of cursed pearls: every single bead a compliment paid in return for something. Suddenly seized by an overwhelming hatred, she looked upon her face with great distaste, you are my undoing, she thought. The more she began to consider her thoughts rationally, the more they began to build up momentum and take a life of their own. Every single self pitying phrase, insult, insecurity rose up and joined its ranks – marching onwards in a great movement.

No more no more she cried out finally, great passion and hurt flooding over her person. Quietly slipping into the mode when passion has completely overwhelmed reason (or perhaps reason itself has fled), she grabbed at a razor blade sitting quietly on the counter top and started to tear into her face. With every cut she made, with every slice into thin skin, she felt the burden from her heart slowly slip away. The pain made her freer – the tears she cried stung the wounds and the sight of the streams of blood and tears dropping into the once pristine white sink liberated her further. Her mind flashed through a thousand days, every man that she once loved – every little thing cutting her inside and being repaired simultaneously by the cuts she was now making.

Finally exhausted with emotion and physical pain, she made her last cut into her cheek. Letting the blade fall into the sink from her now bloody hands, she ignored the small clink it made as she once more beheld her face. Lines were scored into her face, bare red flesh peeping out, and what remained of her face caked in blood, she was finally gone. She smiled and she sank to the floor and started to drift off to sleep on a puddle of blood. She had never felt so satisfied and at ease with her spirit before.

For no more would she be undone by man, for they would no longer want her.