Yes, I might be feeling the tiniest bit surreal tonight.

[chess]

She looks at her hands, absorbed in her own world; absent-mindedly, she traces a finger over the irregular nails, the ones that broke, the ones that did not break, the long and the short. Her hands are not as soft as she remembers them. Many things have happened since they were.

The backs of her hands remind her of the time she had a white pen, and drew elaborate swirls and patterns, tracery and embroidery, decorating herself. Of course, she had to wash it all off before she went home, because her parents still believed in ink poisoning, even after that boy in her year had painted his tongue blue and come to no harm through it. They also reminded her of the times she had decorated them in blood, which fades faster than pen; she remembers it spreading out and tracing the delicate system of rivulets that form the surface of her skin in red-fading-to-brown. Once she outlined the joint-lines of her fingers in red biro, because it appeared then that they are bleeding, also. There is something about the taste of blood which she cannot quite define; superficially it tastes like metal, like rust, but the associations are... different.

Sometimes she regrets the choice she made, to avoid pain but to dilute the beautiful redness of her easiest source of blood to a rotten, ugly brown. No longer can she paint herself in the right colours, or in any colours, for the new blood - if you can call it that - barely colours at all, disintegrating rather than dissolving. She knows that it was mostly not blood in the first place - after all, it hardly tasted of anything at all, which is how she likes things - but she is ever so slighlty repelled by having the new substance inside her at all, as if her insides were rotting and falling to pieces, rather than simply the latter.

She thinks of trees, and stars, and tumble-weed in long, dry deserts, and the deep sorrow of the world, but she refuses to dwell on such for long.

It is winter in the forest, and there is frost upon the planes;
each blade of grass is frosted as a little candy cane.
It is winter in the forest, where the cruel winds do blow,
and the creatures there do huddle, and wait upon the snow.

It is winter in the forest, and I would not take you there;
there is frost upon her eyelashes and ice all in her hair.
It is winter in the forest, and you do not wish to know;
it is winter in the forest, and 'tis not a place to go.

It is winter in the forest, and the shadows bide their time,
as the leaves turn into soil and she fails to find a rhyme.
It is winter in the forest, and it is not safe to be,
it is not safe in the forest, it is not safe here with me.

It is winter in the forest, as she treads the lonely trail,
and shelters under branches from the sleet and from the hail;
it is winter in the forest, and no place is to be found
where a cold and tired stranger can sleep warm, safe and sound.

It is winter in the forest, and I don't think that you see,
that it is not safe in the forest, and it is not safe here with me.
It is not safe in the forest, it is not a place to be,
and you should not tread this trail, and you should turn and flee.