Craig: Schizophrenia/Self-Harm

He was attractive, Christ, was he attractive. He was someone I wanted in my bed with me, not to sleep with but to lay under the covers with his hand curled around my fluffed strands of hair. I bet he smells good, like whatever brand of cologne he came into the ward wearing. I didn't have any cologne because I've been in this place for twenty-eight days now, all I owned were the same change of clothes and a peruvian chullo my grandmother knit me when I was sixteen. I thought this was all I needed, I didn't expect to be in here as long as I have been.

The blonde I continued to stare at, sat outside his room in the hallway, knees curled up to his chest and his head leaned against the back wall. I wanted to walk out of the balcony I stood in, and go to sit right beside him, but we've never exchanged words before, so that may be awkward. So instead I darted my attention from the blonde to the wrists of my arms and before I became fully aware of what I was about to do, I took what little nails I had to scratch the healing wounds and possibly break skin.

Even though they were still red and somewhat raw, I liked the pain I inflicted on myself because very slowly, blood bunched up from the newly opened slashes spiraled about my skin. My nails continued to run across them. I didn't even notice a nurse walk up behind me so I could stop before they said anything.

This would turn out to be yet another instance I've been caught doing this, but I couldn't seem to keep my nails away from my wrists. This was why they cut my fingernails so short, but it didn't work. It never worked.

A nurse popped up from nowhere and muttered my name in a disappointed tone, but I never tore my nails away from the skin on my left wrist. The entire area was covered in smeared blood. Somewhere inside my mind, I was told to continue even when the nurse grabbed me by the arm to pull me off the balcony and into my room. We walked by the blonde sitting outside his room. Jesus, he was so attractive. I smiled his way as I was pulled past him, I didn't get the chance to see if he smiled back. I was suddenly shoved into my quarters, with both my arms now behind my back and something told me that this was wrong.

So I struggled against the nurse. The one who didn't have a name because I was too lazy to look at his nametag, so to me he was just The Nurse - as generic as the rest of them. And as I struggled, they pushed more restraints against me, like how they pushed my face first onto my bed that smelled of my sweat and dirty linen, and they called for the other generic nurses to help put me down.

This part was the worse, I've had this happen so many times, I'm surprised I haven't been put off into a separate section of the ward. I guess this hospital was too humane for that. Or, that's what I heard.

There was a needle in the hand of Generic Nurse #2. He had brown hair that reminded me of another patient on the floor. Maybe that was him in disguise, because I swear, I've never seen this nurse before. He took the needle and jammed it into one of my arms that was being pulled behind my back. I still had the urge to scratch my cuts. That activity gave me so much relief. Like if I were an addict, that'd be my drug of choice. To reopen the slits on my wrists.

Maybe I was insane after all…

No. I pushed that comment to the furthest section of my brain. I wasn't insane. I wasn't like Wendy who had two souls within her, and I wasn't like the boy who was mute and liked to twitch a lot. I was sane. I was totally sane.

That turned out to be my last waking thought, as I slipped off into unconsciousness because whatever Generic Nurse #2, jammed into my skin made me do so. I think I cursed loudly while I was doing so. I probably did… I had a tendency of it.