Woolard 1

Alexys C. Woolard

Professor Maple

English 101-19

6 February 2019

Razor

The day I started cutting started off like any other day. I woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast

and made my way to school. When I arrived at school there was a swarm of pubescent boys

standing by the entrance of my school. They seemed to be bickering about something but I was

in too much of a hurry to care about the details. I knew I had to walk past them in order to get to

class so I tried my best to walk through them without interrupting their conversation. When I

reached for the door handle, Ihandle, I could feel all their eyes on me. I turned around to see all

their eyes traveling up and down my body. I was frozen. I was never the girl that got attention

from a guy and now I had four guys staring at me and I had no idea what to do. I always

wondered if it was actually possible to smell fear, because if so, I reeked of it. There was a light

skinned boy, with thick curly hair, hazel eyes, and a diamond in his left ear. He was wearing

black cargo pants, with a wrinkled white polo shirt and a gold chain to top it all off. He was cute

and he knew it. He walked towards me in what seemed like slow motion and reached for the

door handle. “What’s your name?” his voice was sweet and raspy. I looked up and said

“Alexys”. He chuckled and for a split second I thought that maybe, just maybe, he could really

like me. He told me he liked my shoes and I returned the compliment and headed to math class.

As I was walkingwalking, I could hear him laughing and the rest of his posse joined in. I stood

behind the wall so they couldn’t see me and listened to what they were saying. I tried hard to
 Woolard 2

differentiate their voices to figure out who was speaking. “Man, why did you lie to her like that”

one voice said which a chuckle to follow. “You just said she was too big to be dressed like that”.

He can’t be talking about me. I pray he isn’t talking about me.me, I pray he’s not talking about

me. “I mean she was cute, but I hope she didn’t get the wrong idea, because I don’t talk to big

girls” this voice was raspy but this time not so sweet.

That day I got home and ran upstairs to my bathroom and shut the door behind me. I stared at

my reflection in the mirror and watched as the tears ran down my cheek and hit the sink beneath

me. I asked myself if that was really what people saw when they looked at me. “A big girl”? I

wiped the tears from eyes and grabbed my phone. I pressed the safari tab at the bottom of my

screen and search “How to lose 10 pounds in a week”. Most of the results were about detoxing

and had pills and teas I couldn’t afford. I came across a video of a girl my age “I lost 30 pounds

in 2 months” she had starved herself. She drank water every day and when she got

hungryhungry, she ate a cracker or would exercise.

That night I asked my mom to take me to the store to buy some water so I could have a full

supply for the rest of the month. The drive to the grocery store was quiet but tense. I knew my

mom could sense that something was wrong but she knew I wouldn’t talk about it if she had

asked. I remember looking out the window as if I was in some sad movie scene. All I could think

about was his voice. That sweet, raspy voice kept replaying in my head over and over again. “I

don’t talk to big girls”. “I don’t talk to big girls”. That’s all he could see. I could feel the hot tear

running down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away with my shoulder and looked up at the

illuminating Walmart sign in front of me. Outside it smelt like cigarette smoke and the snot that I

had accumulated in my nose. I walked in front of my mom with my head down so she wouldn’t

see the dried-up tears on my face. I took some of my spit and tried my best to wipe to evidence
 Woolard 3

away. I looked up to her and told her I would meet her back up in front after I was done

shopping. She replied “okay” and I carried on. When I met her at the check-out line I put a pack

of water and saltine crackers in her cart. “That’s all you’re going to get? She asked. I nodded and

proceeded to but our items on the conveyor belt.

When I got back homehome, I sat on my bed to research ways I could avoid

eating. I stumbled into a very dark video of a girl who used cutting as a way to punish/distract

herself from eating. I was scared, but at this time in my life I thought this would be the best thing

to do. I walked to my bathroom and opened the cabinets under my sink and searched through a

mess of hair products and miscellaneous item to get to an unopened pack of razors and tore the

package open. I stared at the pink razor in my hand and examined it before getting a lighter to

melt the plastic surrounding the glistening object. After the plastic was thin enough to

breakbreak, I peeled it off to expose a shining, metallic, sharp blade. I wiggled the blade around

and felt a sharp pain shoot through my hand. I had cut my finger. I watched as the blood ran

down the ridges of my hand. It was bright red and thick. The weird thing is that watching the

blood run down my hand seemed to make the pain go away. I looked at my wrist. It was a blank

canvas waiting to be painted in red. I stared at the blade then my wrist, then the blade and back

again at my wrist and repeated this until I finally dug the blade into my skin. It felt as if a

hundred needles were fighting on my wrist. The blood seeped through the cut and ran down my

arm. I started crying and put my hand on the wound, laid on my bed, and drifted to sleep.

The next morning was the same as the first, only I had to hide my new addition from my

mother. I rummaged through the mess of clothes I had at the foot of my bed and searched for the

thickest, long sleeve shirt I could find. My outfit was not at all appropriate for the weather but I

didn’t have the strength in me to tell my mom what I had done last night. The whole day was a
 Woolard 4

series of shirt pulling and hiding my wrist from the rest of my peers. Although I hated having to

hide from everyoneeveryone, I couldn’t stop myself from digging the blade deeper into my skin.

Every day was a constant battle between me and the razor and the razor always seemed to

win…until one night I decided enough was enough. I walked into my room to find the razor

where I had left it after my last session and examined it one last time. I carefully picked it up

from my night stand and carried it to the bathroom. I stared at the razor then the toilet, then the

razor and back again at the toilet and repeated this until I finally threw the razor into the water

and watched as it swirled away.

The last time I cut was six years ago. I am now a freshman in college and living on my

own for the first time in my life. Although I am faced with challenges every day, I no longer look

to my razors to help me cope. The scars on my wrist remind me of how far I have come and the

obstacles I had to learn to overcome.