A Thousand Crimson Deaths

In all of its forms, fear laces the edges of all our lives. Like some kind of textured growth, creeping ever closer to the center of our beings. And I've wondered and thought about for a while now, that life isn't about new beginnings - it's about small deaths. Everyone wants to start over, and believe that they've left behind their past. Parts of themselves better forgotten than remembered. It's bullshit - every pain you've suffered, every tear that's left its mark upon your face matters - as for these, there is no such thing as rest in peace.

Because the pieces of you that die don't go quietly.

I think that they writhe, wail, and scream in streaks of arterial blood spraying the walls of your psyche. These events traumatize us, when they happen. They're the tragedy that begs for attention, when you're down and out like this you are raw, and unstable, and a mess. It's the first phase.

The second is much more pervasive. It's the rot, the stench of loss that permeates your thinking. The days that you feel "off" or unsteady, are the result. I think that we adapt to it, work on replacing it, to better ourselves when little pieces of our minds are so very reluctantly six feet under.

The third phase is the worst, in my opinion. When we look back, memories strike us where it counts - over the old wounds. These are what I like to call the stain. It's what remains after everything's rotted down to little thin nothings, and the blood has gone from liquefied ruby-colored suffering to crusted, coppery brown-black ugliness embedded in the carpet of our minds. We can never truly clean ourselves, because these reminders are the only thing we're too close to part with. They're unpredictable, everywhere, and there is no accounting for them - the threat of the scab, the stitches breaking open again is all too real. It's humanity's best way of forgetting.

The wounds that we refuse to dress will never heal, so we cut them off to wither away.

A thousand crimson deaths, every single day.