Plath

The bleeding wouldn't stop.

Her hands quaking with anger, continued to dig past fat, into muscle, between bones. She flicked the blood away, spattering the white wall, the beige carpet. Finally, she reached her goal. The heart, pumping with fear, adrenaline and pain, practically lept into her hand.

He wouldn't touch her. Complained about minute things as if they were all that mattered in the world. Bitched when she acted too independently, but was disgusted when she hung on his every word. He rejected her daily with unconscious body language. But she stayed.

Others, not so many, but enough to make her question his judgment, liked her. They were initially attracted by the shining carapace of her corsetry, her skirts, her bright hair. Were kept in close orbit by her wit and generosity. The details that so offended him were never noted, or at least, never commented upon.

This organ, this clenched fist of muscle. THIS was where the pain was. The neglect, the hurt. The bright joy of infatuation shattered by the sharp bitterness of betrayal. This ball of pulsing flesh, red like lipstick, red like pomegranates, red like glowing coals, the same color as her shaking hand. She knew what she wanted.

An end.

Her goal. An end to pain. A final bout of suffering, and then silent cessation. The void, and all that comes with it. Dogged determination was all that kept her going. She could feel it nearing, the cold breath of finality on her scalp, the nape of her neck, quivering down her spine. No way back to the comfortable life of self-delusion, admiration of strangers, and mocking hope that things would change.

He struggled against his makeshift bonds, the glue on the tape losing its adhesion to nervous sweat. He loosed his arms, tried to slap her hands away from their prize.

She felt her heart beating in her hands, and squeezed.