Watch Me Bleed.

Author’s note; This one is very dark, and contains the depiction of a suicide attempt. Reader discretion is advised ....

Well, I guess I really gotta write this, dont I?

The doc’s insist that writing might be the best way for me to deal with it, and wont let me go until I do, so here goes .....

But I am gonna tell it my way.

Lets hit the wayback machine back to early October, because that’s as close to the beginning as we probably need to go.

Thats when a boy named Tom transferred to Walter Raleigh high school.

Tom was ...quiet, shy. An easy target for bullies, who called him “fag” and names like that. But there was one place he seemed to fit in, and that was Drama.

He made .... I dont know if you would call them “friends” but people who didnt mind him hanging around, so probably as close to friends as he had.

Then the day came, when they announced the air band contest.

The idea was simple, You provide a tape of music, and then you “perform” on stage along to the music.

And Tom decided to give the performance of his life.

His “friends” should have known something was wrong when he asked them not to come .....

It started out simply. A dark stage, and then music started.

“Watch me Bleed” by Tears for Fears.

And then the lights came up, and there was Tom.

Wearing girl clothes.

The audience was totally stunned, because he’d obviously put a lot of effort into his look. If you didnt know it was a guy, you could barely tell.

He? She? Kept singing.

“Heaven comes to he who waits

Bleed forever”

Then, as the song came to near the end, he pulled out a knife from his waist and sliced his wrist open.

Blood went everywhere, but I think most of the audience assumed this was part of the song, a fake-out.

Then with one wrist bleeding he tried to slash the other one, and missed, cutting into bone instead.

He fell over just as the song came to an end.

That’s when if must have finally sunk in that this wasnt faked, and people started screaming. A teacher tried to stop the bleeding and another called 911, and within a few minutes all that was left to deal with were traumatized students and a pool of blood on the stage .....

Later, they would find the suicide note in his locker, how he just couldnt deal with wanting to be a girl anymore. He thought it was a sin, a sickness, and the fact that he coudn’t stop was a sign that even God hated him.

That he was better off dead.

Meanwhile, they rushed Tom to the hospital, and pumped him with blood while trying to stop the bleeding.

Tom survived, at least for a short while.

But not long after the psych docs had a talk with him, Tom was gone, and not coming back.

And now there’s just me.

Dawn.

And I’m luckier than I deserve after the stunt I pulled as Tom.

They were able to save my hands, so I can type this, for example.

And they’re working with me to make me as female as I can be, which I didnt know could happen.

I dont know for sure what’s going to happen now. My parents came on board, which helps, but I think before I move on with my life there is one bit of unfinished business left over from when I was Tom.

I gotta apologize to all the kids who I traumatized, and I’m not sure what I can say.

“I was stupid and selfish” sounds like a good place to start though.

We’ll just have to see ......