She sat quietly
Her eyes were closed against the cheap paper of her book
Se breathed in the sweet dryness of its scent
To keep inhaling, she reminded herself, to live
Her face lifted
She stared at the paper on her bed, her lips pressed tightly
It was a blank, a canvas, a white infinite of possibilities
That emptiness welcomed her, urging her to purge it of innocence
Her and rose
She slowly reached out to grasp two small, thin objects
They, in a way, looked similar, both with slim handles
One was a paintbrush, the other a sharp knife
She thought
I know I don't want to die, I can't yet, and I refuse to
She drew the blade across her skin lightly, almost harmlessly
Only a single bitter line, which pushed forward sacred crimson life
She reached
Her left hand passed the paintbrush to her right
She waited, watching that one scarlet line
Waiting for a single drop to slide down her forearm
She braced
As she saw one bead emerge, she dabbed her brush
Blood soaked into the thin hairs, saturating the tip
She placed that tip straight over the paper, and began to paint
She wrote
She wrote words she didn't know anything about
Flowing through her wrist, both words and blood, a tantalizing couple
She wrote her own poem on that treasured blank
She saw
Her eyes followed every movement of her hand, only an audience
When she had finally finished, everything felt oddly calm
She pulled her wrist tightly against her chest, and hunched her back over
She cried
Her tears sealed the poem, her blessed trinity
Her blood, her tears, her passion
She let it go, and admitted to herself that to survive, in itself, was a
great deed
And she can do it