on his back he was licking his wounds like a cat, his purring was small moans of satisfaction and pain. he rolled onto his side and starting biting at his wrists. tearing of small pieces of skin hanging from the long cuts down his arms. deep wounds marked his days of sobriety. so far two large scars spill open fresh with his warm blood pouring in perfect streaks down to the tip of his elbow dripping off onto the bed. pooling and seeping through the mattress, through the box spring, through the floor’s carpeting and the ceiling’s plaster. through the lights of despair onto the floor next to me his blood slowly drips. looking up is a warped red circle that resembling the stain of bruises to a black eye. he starts gnawing at his nailess fingers trying to recover, trying to discover something. he turns, “the road to hell was paved with stolen stuffed animals”. i looked at him with a look of slight sadness, a lot he knew all too well. any time he talked we’d look at him as if he said something really completely idiotic and never let him know the difference. why would it matter if he’d just be staying up in his room counting days and hours and drawing shapes and patterns. he didn’t know any better. i started cleaning up the blood when it got on my hands and i paused and thought nothing of it. later i touched my lips and his blood shook my tongue to the very most bitter of tastebuds were all that was left. i sat next to him on the bed and he leaned to me and laid his head on my leg. he looked up at me with his big brown eyes and whispered a prayer in french. i started humming along and he started to get louder until he stopped and ran to the window. “it’s raining” i walked over and observed the rain until we couldn’t really hear it anymore and sat down on the floor below the window. the window was too high above us to see out of while we were sitting but we both decided that sitting so close to the outside will make the outside louder and then we’ll hear it inside. he figures, “if we’re inside, and we hear the outside, is not a piece of the outside indoors now?”i answer, “well the outdoors coming in, does it not become indoors now anyways?”he wasnt baffled, this isnt a riddle. its nearly the classification of what is inside a home’s door or outside a home’s door and even if its not supposed to be where it is, it is it. no matter where it goes. “let me be more specific then, i must think though onto how to ask this question” i let him think there, sitting crosslegged with blood drying on him. the movements of his skin has dried the blood in a path resembling a tire tracks treds and i stare at the cuts and at his solemn face. his eyes are closed now thinking of shapes and patterns and words from the mouth in his brain that thinks the words before he says them. i stand to look out the window and there is a brick wall. the entire room is bricks and there is a puddle in the middle. a few dirty colored fall leaves lay in the puddle, a mini pond more so. small weeds are growing next to it and my reflection is a big shadow with a white square behind it representing the ceiling lights. the lights getting brighter and i continue to stare at my shadow, a small splash indicates a drop has fallen into the puddle. as i kneel down to examine it my shadow becomes more of a reflection of the bridge of my nose and my eyes. i see a red diffusions occuring below me in the puddle. i see his cuts on my arms and his bites on my legs and fingertips. i see all my hair cut in the corner and small pieces of it lay on my face and in my shirt and it itches.