The saying goes:

“The pen is mightier than the sword”.

She sat there with pen in hand,

and blade in the other.

The latter the perpetrator of the scars on her arms,

like a prisoner marking the days in his cell.

For a change, for the sake of testing

the words so often quoted,

she raised the pen to the paper.

Spilling her soul instead.

Bright red.

The pen glided across the paper,

scrawling words of anger and hate,

of suffering and pain,

and the various events of the day.

In that moment she found release.

An alternative anesthetic to get her through the day.

Pen still in hand,

she put the blade away.