Cut, guilt. Thirteen.
Sunday, 02/29/04 - 6:11 pm.

I don't like sundays. I hate HOT sundays. And this, being sunday AND hot AND a 29th of february, is to me nothing but an asymptote. Sundays in general are asymptotes to me.

March is about to start. The sun is changing positions, I can tell, because a week ago, the sunlight didn't hit directly my keyboard, now it does (I wish I had a camera), making typing seem a little surreal. But that's a tangent. The bottom line is that I get physically depressed on particularly hot seasons. It's like an overwhelming pressure of some force coming from the sun, that grounds me and makes me unable to move.

I rented Thirteen two nights ago, and watched it last night. I was kind of hoping nobody would watch it with me, because I'd heard of the nature of the movie, and I thought it'd be something I'd relate to very well...I wanted it to be a personal experience. But my brother sat with me, and of course I wasn't going to tell him that. And I didn't give a fuck, anyway, because he's always an enjoyable soul to be with.

Halfway through the movie I felt I didn't relate to it at all, for many reasons. Globally, because I live in a different culture than the US youth. I did have a fake best friend once, who was somewhat abusive (my neighbor, she still lives next door, I hope she burns in hell)...well, two if you count her brainwashed friend (another neighbor) and three if you count her rude brother. But I wasn't older than 10, I believe. I mean, I don't even remember a lot of our relationship by now, except that she stole my money, she mocked me, she made me kiss somebody older than me....but those are tangents. I mean we never did such heavy stuff like drugs and sneaking out.

But then it got to the cutting part. I heard my brother whispering, very quietly, terrified, in a voice that terrified me: shit.... I could tell that on the scenes about cutting he was almost looking away (and he's doctor; doctors, I've always believed, can endure many things when it comes to bodies). And at that moment, my blood froze. I felt horribly guilty. And I was scared he might realize that the huge scar (keloid) on my arm wasn't an accident.

I would've cried through the movie, had I been watching it by myself. I tend to cry a lot when I watch movies, even if it's nothing emotional. Movies have that effect on me. But instead of crying through the movie, because of what was happening in it, I ended up crying after the movie, because of what was happening in my life.

I'm not much of a cutter, really, but I do it ocassionally, when I'm too upset. I have four visible scars on my legs and the keloid on my arms (there are three actually, but only one can be spotted effortlessly). It got on my nerves, how the mom stared at the cuts and wouldn't cover them back, I wanted to scream to leave her alone, already.

With guilt and fear, I started to come up with an excuse in case, say, we went to the beach and my scars showed (except when I'm at the beach, I don't wear shorts). I could say that some were accidental scars from the first times I was shaving, and some others I got at school, under the desks (hey, sometimes they had loose screws)...and it's ok, I think they'd believe me, because, aside from my brother (who learned about it just last night) nobody in my family knows about self-mutilation (well, in my case is more slashing than mutilating), and I know it would never cross their minds that there's room for such monstruosity in me.

With self-harm comes lying, doesn't it?

But...I'm not sure if I could pull it off. I'd feel so guilty that instead of opening my mouth to wholeheartedly say the excuse, I'd start to cry, confessing everything and endlessly apologizing. And that scares me. Not for myself, I don't care for the scars on my body nor do I regret doing them, but for them. Them, my family, who've given me as much as a human being can give.

But I'm praying they'll never know. I put on their shoes, and I remember the mom on Thirteen and I know there's no way they could understand...nobody could understand a cutter except for a cutter. I don't understand it myself, but when I cut, "understanding" is one of the last worries on my mind.

Well, I didn't cry after the movie, anyway. I was almost in tears by the end of the movie (after containing myself half of it), but the tears dried up before I shed them. Maybe fear and guilt had frozen all will to pour themselves out. I don't know. I wrote a short apology on my notebook and went to bed, with dry cheeks and bitten lower lip.

In words of Calvin, there's no problem so awful that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse.

If you must know, I liked the movie a lot.

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