Ella

Ella:  “I’m so angry, I could spit!”  is what my grandmother used to say.

I say it to myself:  I’M SO ANGRY I COULD SPIT!

Only, it doesn’t work.  I mean, I don’t want to spit.  Spit?! 

I’m so angry, I could cry is more like it. I am crying.  I always cry when I’m this mad.

It doesn’t even matter anymore what I’m mad at, or what I was mad at.  Now I’m mad at myself.  For being mad?  For being me.  And the worst part is, I can’t go back, I can’t ever be unangry.  I can’t NOT have told my boyfriend that I never want him to talk to Jayla again, and I don’t care if they’ve been friends forever, and if it doesn’t mean anything like we’re going to break up, or anything to do with me at all – that’s what he said, but I didn’t – don’t – believe him.  Still, I shouldn’t have said anything.  Then he wouldn’t have gotten mad, and we wouldn’t have had the fight we had and he wouldn’t have left all pissed and maybe going to break up with me, I don’t know…

All I can think about is scraping a piece of glass up my arm.  Slashing thin lines of blood.  I know where to cut to really hurt myself, I slash up by the crook of my elbow instead of my wrist.

The broken glass works.  A flap of skin is free, hanging, and blood is running down my arm, and I feel better.