Dear Baby Sarah,
How are you, love? Me, not so hot. I've been thinking about the blood-letting lately. Quite a bit. Not too healthy. I can't remember how old you were when it started. You were young though, probably younger than even I imagine.
I remember one time, well into the stress bleeding, it was you, your mother, and Asim. In the kitchen. This was after the hospital, I think. Things were good for a while after the hospital, but that didn't last as long as we had hoped. I can't really remember what the circumstances were that day, but I remember an orange towel. And... screaming? Mmmm... no, that's not fair. She wasn't screaming, but she was definitely doing that rueful, hateful bitch voice, with the murderous eyes and sneer that get me all raged-up and pissed these days.
She, of course, blamed Asim, who subsequently felt awful. I remember you thinking, very specifically, "It's not because of Asim, it's because of you."
It's funny how through all of it, we still managed to cling to all the little things that made life normal. It's true, yes, that you and Asim were fighting. Bickering. As a six-year old and a ten-year old, or whatever you were, are wont to do. Sick little thing that I am, I tend to look back on moments like that with this bittersweet, spiteful sort of joy. No matter how much they tried, no matter how hard they fucked with your head, you still knew exactly when they were being fuckers. You knew what made you normal, that it was okay to scream your little lungs out at your brother, not that either of us has ever screamed, ever, and you knew that the things they did were very much not okay. Even then, as a baby, you knew they were unnatural. That was not the way life was meant to be.
That was the first time I realized what was going on. That is wasn't just the dry air, and that is wasn't your fault. The first time it occurred to me that this was something they could take care of if they had bothered, for about thirty seconds, to give a fucking damn. Sadly, you were well on your way to dying by then. I don't know when I started chronicling all their little failures, but this was a moment of beauty. All the blood-is-thicker-than-water bullshit they fed you, and they couldn't be bothered to look for a way to stop-up the blood spilling out all over their fucking home.
Then there was the scratching. You started scratching when you were pretty much already a spectre, but I liked it, so I kept it going. Neither of us really knew what was going on. Why we were doing it, what it meant, why it was happening. But I understand it now. I stopped scratching a while ago, not really, but kind of.
I still sit the way we would, still look for the outlet, but it's just not there anymore. I've had to find other ways to distract myself, to get it out of my system, but the idea is still there.
I started to stop after that time that your father caught me. He didn't know what was going on. Thought it was dry skin. Always the fucking dry air, no? Thought you were stupid. Thought you were stupid. He couldn't tell that you were already dead, but he thought you were stupid. Special, that.
To be honest, I can't really remember scratching after the first time I was caught. Not that any of it was better, or that anything went away. I just didn't want to get caught again. Didn't want to sit there while one of your parents wiped away the blood and tried to salve my legs, thinking I was a baby, thinking I was still you, thinking there was anything they could do to keep you healthy, to protect you.
That was right before things started to get really awful, the last chance for them to do something right, probably. Right before I got serious about it. Right after I figured out just what it was that we had been doing.
I don't know what it is with us and the blood. Something about life and warmth and pain, I'm sure, but it's one of the few things that I can't articulate. Maybe I just haven't thought about it enough, but - ... Oh. Man. I am funny. Who, writing about self-mutilation, says "Maybe I just haven't thought about it enough."? Only me. I am a funny girl. What I'm trying to say, darling, is that I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, haven't figured out what it means. It's a question that isn't exactly as pressing as a lot of the questions I have for life, or god, or whoever the fuck else, but it's one of the curiousities that makes us us.
Lately, and this is the part where I get not so good, I've found a new secret. When I left London I abandoned you, and that cost us both a lot. Nearly killed me, and was just another disgusting let-down in the history of Injustices Against Baby Sarah. But, as is generally the case, it caught up to me, and I started looking for an outlet. This is why I want to know what it is about the blood. Part of me thinks that if I could figure out why bleeding seems like such a relief I would be able to beat it. I don't know if that's true, but it beats what I'm doing in the interim. I haven't actually cut myself. Haven't bled myself in years, thankfully, but the temptation has been strong, especially as of late.
Usually it's just a one shot deal. I think it, I tell myself no, I don't do it. There are times, though, Baby Sarah, when I can't get the thought out of my head. So I've started scratching, in a new and different way. This time it's my forearms. Scratch them until the itch goes away, until I feel like I can breathe again, and my neck and shoulders relax a bit. It's good and bad, I guess. Good, in that fingernails are less dangerous than razorblades or whatever I might find in the kitchen, bad in that, you know, healthy people usually just leave their arms the way they find them.
I want to stop, little one. I really do. I'm working on words now. Hoping that writing to you will be enough of an outlet to get it out of my system. From what I can tell, based mostly on Asim, it will never really be gone, but if I can prevent any serious damage, maybe even be mostly happy one day, that's enough for me.
Thanks for listening,
Your Sarah
