the threads in her head

-defeated by thy own hand

I scrawled the message I wanted to tell you on my arm. With a yellow highlighter. Fluorescent cool ink on my skin, and I thought back to what my classmate once told me when I used a green marker to draw all over the palm of my hand. "You're gonna get skin cancer like this!" she said. "It's toxic!"

I wondered if I was slowly killing myself with the toxicity of yellow highlight ink. I wondered if it will really get me skin cancer, and turn me into a monster. But only for a while. Just as quickly my mind focused on the message, the importance of it all, and how it had to get to you. Who cares about me contracting skin cancer at this time??

Not me. The message I was going to tell you was more important than the risk of me getting skin cancer.

I dashed out into the streets, and tried to flag down a taxi. They zoomed past me, on call signs blinking away. Oops. Peak period. My hands feel around my pants and jackets for my phone. None. I had forgot to bring it out. Well, it didn't matter. It was only one kilometre to your house. I could run it, easily.

So I ran, fast, hard, running to you, bursting to tell you my message. I reached your door, I raised my hand to press the doorbell.

Only to see that the words were gone.

Sweat mingled with ink, swirls of yellow ink. The words gone gone.