'COPING WITHOUT CUTTING' - #SlamPoetry

I am getting there. Slowly but surely…today marks 2 whole months since I last put a blade to my skin!!!

This may not seem like a lot to most people, but to those who suffer with self harm this is a huge feat to be recognised!

To mark this occasion I have written a spoken word about one of the coping mechanisms that has been a saving grace in my recovery…writing!!!

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Coping Without Cutting

She bled unspoken words from her fingers

She watched them drain from her hands

Until the paper beneath them was smothered

In thoughts she did not understand

Her ballpoint pen was her razor

Her paper was her pale white skin

She wanted to unlock the vault in her mind

To cast light on the darkness within

Her blood she had once used as ink

To stain the sides of the porcelain sink

A single drop

A thousand words

Washed away and never heard

So now, instead, she tries to write

Her crimson red in black and white

‘Hold onto the hope that things will get better

That a pain like this is just a patch of bad weather

The rain will pass

Once it’s watered the grass

And the weight of your past will feel like a feather

You feel you are lost

Because you are not who you were

But in life you change, you grow, you learn

Life is a journey that puts you through hell

But brings you times of elation as well

I advise you to appreciate the completely mundane

Because you will never experience those moments again

There’s no point up keeping a smile that's false

If inside you feel like you’ve barely a pulse

Fight for the blessing of feeling alive

Fight to live, not just to survive’

‘You give the world to others but nothing to yourself

You cannot accept the advice you share with everyone else

You move mountains for them and yet you cannot climb your own hills

Hold on till tomorrow and maybe you will

Her book was messy

But beautiful still

Her spine was worn

Her pages torn

But at least her pages were filled

She left no sentence incomplete

Of what she’s known, so indiscreet

She refused to censor the letters she wrote lost at sea; barely afloat

She refused for she knew that her suicide note could could inspire an act of awareness and hope

She wanted the world to hear her original tales of Grimm

Of blood and redemption and torture and sin

But instead of carving it out with a blade

She took to royal blood

Completely man made

She signed her name in hope and health

And remarkably with that she saved herself

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Courage;

Alice xxx