VIIIXXII

It’s skipping meals because you don’t feel like you deserve to eat today. It’s having sex because you want to be used or abused or defiled. It’s drinking recklessly because you might have the ‘courage’ do something stupid. It’s smoking - not because you need the nicotine - because you know it’s bad for you. It’s banging your head against a wall when you’re angry. It’s crossing the road without looking because you lowkey hope a car might hit you. It’s thinking about all the ways you could break a bone and make it look like an accident. It’s not taking painkillers because you want to suffer. It’s taking painkillers in excess because you know it’s dangerous. It’s walking home the more dangerous way because you’re kind of half hoping you’ll get attacked or raped or stabbed. It’s going for long walks at night and getting chilled to the bone and hoping that you get lost so that you can’t find your way back. It’s seeking out triggering material. It’s all the stupid little ways you punish yourself for existing.

Sometimes self harm happens when you put effort into depriving yourself of things you like or need, and sometimes it happens when you don’t put any effort into doing the things you like or need.

Ernest Green, the first African-American to graduate from Little Rock Central High, standing by himself on graduation day - Little Rock, AR