Beautiful by Cheez Whiz

Warning: Self-harm

They don’t tell you that sacrilege is only fun if you're beautiful. On the inside, maybe not. If you took a knife to my guts you'd end up with your own finding a home on my living room carpet.

What they don't tell you is there’s an amount of grandeur that comes with self-abuse, an amount of conceit you need to hold to reckon that this will be maintainable in the long term. The patterns in the stomach contents splattered around the floors of gas station bathrooms is what makes you beautiful. This is control, you think. This is perfection. Modern art. Abstract insecurities.

What they don't tell you is that not even a 12 step program exists for this. No one is up there to restore you to sanity. The thing about people adjacent to me (my self-desecration) is that they at least have integrity. They don't escape their own faults — they wear it under their skin everywhere. Failed attempts at coping never regurgitated. Not beautiful. My problems on the other hand are hidden away in trash bags, cemented to the rims of restaurant toilet bowls, clogging up my shower drain.