Lessons in Self-Preservation

I am proud to confess to you that I am a murderer. Please believe me when I say that we'd all be better off if we did a little killing every once in awhile.

This morning I looked in the mirror and saw that my eyes looked more tired than usual. And that's when the voices started up—sad, mean, angry, desperate voices—familiar voices. These voices have been with me since I can remember. When I was learning to walk, they were there, telling me I wasn't strong enough to stand on my own two feet. They've kept me from sleeping—incessantly whispering in my ears that failure is inevitable. They've kept me from eating—pinching the fat on my side and tsk-tsking when I've thought of ordering pizza. They've kept me from loving—shouting so loudly that I could never hear my sweetheart's soft words over those goddamn voices' unkind cries.

But it was not until today that I actually crawled inside myself and found a horde of sick, sick people living inside me. I came face-to-face with a girl with eyes the color of three-day-old bruises and hair the color of thick scabs, and it was when I noticed the scars on her wrists that I recognized her. She was the part of myself who was always trying to disassemble Venus razors and take them to my wrists at the slightest sign of emotional turmoil. She was the one who, when I was sad and she without a blade, would dig her fingernails into my flesh until blood was drawn. She was the one who stashed a bottle of sleeping pills in the drawer by my bed and whispered as I sobbed, "Just finish the whole bottle, darling. And maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and feel better, or maybe you won't wake up at all! And wouldn't that be marvelous if you didn't wake up at all?"

"There is no reason to be afraid to die" were her last words before I forced handfuls of pills down her throat. I handed her a bottle of merlot and watched her drain it. I was only slightly surprised that she did not struggle when I took each of her wrists in my hands and cut her from palm to elbow. Her blood poured from her body like wine from a broken bottle, and I felt an intoxicating surge of strength at the sight of it.

After that it was easy. I forced fountain pens through the eyes of the cantankerous old man who was constantly convincing me that my words weren't worth reading and reduced him to a wrinkly twitch before bashing his skull in with a dictionary.

After snapping her twig bones, I reached right into the ribcage of the waif who'd been bent on starving me skinny since I can remember. I devoured her plump heart before her eyes and did not worry about the calories.

And then, without batting an eye, I took a blowtorch to her sister's face, that bitch who never let me leave the house without makeup on.

Using the muscle in my thighs, I strangled the broad-shouldered man who'd made me believe I was never strong enough.

And then the thin man who'd called me a slut night after night screamed, "But I'm a nice guy!" before I castrated him and watched him writhe before he bled out.

I slaughtered every part of myself who'd ever caused me to start a sentence with "I can't." I tore limb from limb every person inside me who'd ever made me feel small. And when all of the corpses of the voices who had made it impossible to love myself were finally in a pile, I felt better than I had in my entire life.

I painted my lips and cheeks and eyelids with the blood of the dead parts of myself, and when I caught my reflection in the crimson pool at my feet, I found myself so fiercely beautiful that I never wanted to look away. As I stared into the scarlet, I realized that I had created for myself an endless supply of ink. Now I'm free to create a million works of art, but first, I want all of you to be free, too.

You are all you will ever certainly have, and it is essential to love yourself. Self-hatred is a crime punishable by death—either your death or the death of all those voices in your head insisting that you're unlovable. Never in my life have I condoned violence, but after today, I say if there is a part of you that makes you hurt so much that sometimes you question whether life is worth living, if there is a part of you that paralyzes you, prevents you from filling your life with meaning, he or she must be sacrificed. Take a machete to your meanest parts. Poison the pieces of you who hold you back. Turn their blood into poetry. You owe it to yourself. You'll feel better, I promise.