PUNK PROSE: Don't I Bleed? by Atlas Booth
Don't I Bleed?
Coming home didn't feel like home. Not anymore. Every stitch pulled tight through his tension. It felt like each of the 6 stab wounds wanted to remind him they were born here. But what else could he do?
He should have been moved to a rehab ward for the week, but he refused and signed himself out. He thought he would be able to handle it.
When he came back, the blood-stained carpet was already replaced, the bullet hole in the wall fixed.
He hated it.
He refused to take his pain meds. He had to be alert. And he was. At every sound and perceived movement in his periphery. He went to bed exhausted and nearly pulled a stitch thanks to nightmares.
Daily, he would try to go back to normal. He tried to distract himself. He ran through so many dressings he had to have spares delivered. He refused to call a soul. He ate toast and sometimes a bit more.
Then one day, he woke up. He walked to the shower and broke all the knuckles of his right hand on the tiles lining the shower wall. He didn't care about the cracked tiles, the blood seeping from his hand or that his body was now running only on adrenaline and nothing else.
Nothing felt right. The blood on the carpet should have been there. He nearly died there. He was somebody. He wasn't a ghost. He hurt and he bled and it should have been there.
The bullet hole should have been there. It was real, too. It all happened. It couldn't be fixed that easily. He couldn't be fixed that easily. He wanted it to be as painfully difficult to right his surroundings like he himself was. It wasn't fair. He wasn't weak. He wasn't broken on purpose. Nothing should be fine.
Perhaps that was why he took his gun and emptied his clip in the very same wall the first bullet went through. And perhaps, perhaps that was the reason he carved out the new carpet with one of his kitchen knives. He pulled and ripped the carpet fibres, and his own stitches, until he was left with only cement.
The cement still had some of his blood on it. He stared until the nightmare broke free. He stared until every moment was relived. He stared.
And he wept.
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