China Doll

My skin is tissue paper and my bones are glass. Delicate, breakable. Vulnerable. Submissive. Whether I live or die is in my hands; my fragile porcelain hands.

I start on my forearm.My fingernail carves a neat horizontal line into my wrist. The contrast of the burbling rouge against the unsettling paleness of my skin is satisfying. I draw several more, and then a smiley face. But it’s not enough.

The setting, the crisp white tile bathroom, blurs as I focus only on my new tool, my fingers and hands, and canvas, my body, for me to alter with the red paint within. On the back of my leg, at the top of my thigh, I position my nails. They sink down as I rake them up and over my backside, stopping to the left of the small of my back. Long gashes pour troughs of useless blood down my leg and onto the floor.

“Ellie, are you okay?” Casual. Unassuming.

I move to the front of the same leg: my hip. My thumbnail enters my flesh with barely any resistance. Muscle parts like wet toilet paper, clogging the crescent under my nail. Blood, thin as water, spurts out of the awkward incision and flows down my leg and across my belly in thick shaky streams. I dig my thumb inwards, under my hip bone. The streams become rivers. The pad of my thumb flattens against the smooth curved glass, my other fingers grab ahold on top, and I jerk my arm. There is a hard crack, then a muffled crash, and then shards are slicing through defenseless tissue. Rivers turn to seas as they join with the pooling crimson liquid by my feet.

“I’m fine. Why?”

I flick condensed flesh out from under my thumbnail and press it into the right side of my jaw. I scrape down the angle to my chin. Skin peels off in thick scrolls like pencil shavings. A waterfall trickles under my head and falls into the curve of my carotid, then collects in a little pool in the hollow of my collarbones. The rivulets wind over curves and around angles, finding the quickest way to the growing lake creeping up my toes.

“Just asking.”

I take my fingertip and dip it into the hollow of my right collarbone, then lift it to my cheekbones. I make two quick swipes: war paint. It dries quickly into a thin layer of sticky orange-red.

“Why are you crying? Did someone say something?” Concerned eyes. A tentative hand on my back.

My left thumb and forefinger pinch my left collarbone and snap it inwards. Fragments of glass stab my throat.

“No one said anything.”

Reminiscent of a spoon through Jell-O, I thrust my fingers into the side of my thigh. They hit bone at the second knuckle and I pull them out. Crimson oozes out of little bullet holes and down the marred cream.

“They why are you upset?” Concerned eyes turn confused.

Angry streaks up my belly match the ones over my backside. Lines tracing prominent ribs curve around my torso. I roll my toes to pop the joints and spikes of dripping glass poke through where they should bend.

“I don’t know.”

I look in the mirror and bite my lip. My teeth dive straight through and iron and salt flood my mouth. I spit. Monochromatic splatter-paint obscures my face in the mirror.

I sink to the floor with my legs bent in front of me. My thumb and forefinger dig into the back of my right knee and wrap around the outer tendon. They pull the tendon down, like pulling a loop through a needle. White pulls of taffy grow stringy and finally break apart. My legs extend and my back flattens against the wall. I can feel the puddle of blood over my backside and slipping beneath the undersides of my legs. I curl my hands into my hair and pull. The strands stretch like fishing twine. I sit until I have no blood left, until I am a pale corpse, until I am lifeless and empty inside.

Ivory coated in long pink scratches. Even as I watch, they are fading. Soon they will disappear and no one will know I even tried.

They say the skin is a weak armor. And yet, I can never seem to do much damage.