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 can’t 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.
After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless.
What they forget is that, from Ancient Greece on, the people who returned from battle were either dead on their shields or stronger, despite and because of their scars.
We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.
Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were slaves by birth, freedom fighters by temperament.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
The crowd intimidates me, its breath suffocates me. I feel paralyzed by its curious look, and the unknown faces make me dumb.
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