I open a paperclip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this. A whimper, a peep? I draw little window cracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting.
Interpretation
This quote explores the pain of self-harm and the struggle for emotional expression.
In this poignant quote, the author expresses a deep sense of despair and confusion regarding self-harm. The imagery of the paperclip represents a cry for help that feels insufficient, as it highlights the internal battle of wanting to be noticed while also feeling like one's pain is too small or insignificant to matter.
In practice
In a mental health awareness campaign, to highlight the importance of addressing emotional pain.
Memory cuts both ways; it can either provide you with tremendous strength and a foundation to carry you through your life, or it can be a demon that just ruins your present and your future because you canβt let go of the past.
Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.
This girl shivers and crawls under the covers with all her clothes on and falls into an overdue library book, a faerie story with rats and marrow and burning curses. The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.
A breath of steam trickles out, filled with the sobs of a grown woman breaking into girl-sized pieces.
If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.
Write about the emotions you fear the most.
If I was afraid of being killed, I would never speak out against the government.
The scariest moment is always just before you start.
In these cases, where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor. I emphasize the word: "stop". I'm not saying drop bombs, make war, but stop the aggressor. The means used to stop him would have to be evaluated.
My friend Kurt Maix once described this diffidence as Fear's friendly sister, the right and necessary counterweight to that courage that urges men skyward, and protects them from self-destruction.
I can't let my mother's death have been in vain. Democracy is the best revenge, and we will have it.
There is no doubt the charge was an awful gamble and that no normal precautions were possible. The issue as far as I was concerned had to be left to Fortune or to God - or to whatever may decide these things. I am content and shall not complain.
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