i am fourteen i am angry at some stupid thing my stepfather said and i’m imagining the logistics of running away and never being found i am sitting on the floor in the dust heavy shadow of the far side of my bed so i can’t be immediately seen if someone should open my bedroom door listening to Vincent Price talking about witchcraft and i am playing with the clear tube of a pen and a lighter watching the plastic bubble and turn to a clear trembling bead until it drips onto my leg and wowohshit that hurt and Vincent’s theatrical prose fades for a moment while my heart hammers against my ribs but it wasn’t a terrible hurt just a clean hot bite and it only was a few seconds and when I pulled it off it left behind a little hole in the skin and so i did it again and then again a few days later starting a habit of when i am angry sad lonely or something else and i think about how now those scars are faded almost imperceptible but the scars of words stay mostly buried but never fading anchored in my marrow where i can’t reach them