sometimes i can’t talk myself down from here. sometimes i keep dragging myself up the concrete steps until i get up on that ledge, blood and tears.

i stand out on the edge and i don’t know how to get off. i don’t know how to come down. and i don’t know if i’m ever going to ever hit the days where i don’t wake up every so often just to crack the mirror and throw myself over that dark line.

its the fear that pulls me up and over the side. the fear that drags me on my hands and knees up to the edge when it hits. i never expect the left hook to the face that reminds me: everything i have faith in might be a fantasy. all the things that i hold in trust could shift to salt and pour off my hands to ruin the earth. and that maybe the world just hides your latest, greatest heartbreak behind its back until the last and worst possible moment.

i want to come down. i want to get off. dear god help me come down.
dear god hold my hand.
dear god promise me this stops.

most of the time i forget where the ledge even is. and then comes the hour i’m up here, terrified that i’ll never stop climbing up, or worse, that i’ll never get down again.

blind stamping tr. v. People fall in love to feel special. They want someone to confer beauty upon them, a half-hidden mark of grace. Tell me what makes me different from the others. Tell me when you knew I was the one.

ruler n. There are days you realize that your measurement of an inch is really only your idea of an inch. We like to think we have standards. It’s much easier to imagine you’re following the manual official.

end papers n., pl. I’m notoriously bad at finishing. I empty most of the dishwasher. I memorize most of the lyrics. I butcher the last week of the relationship. The very prospect of finality makes me want to fold myself up.

bone folder n. My origami is frightful. I’m awful with straight lines and planes. My mother tried to teach me how to make a bed, good luck with that. It’s gotten worse, maybe because my hands expect to disappoint.

hot foil stamper n. We often complain about being “under pressure” or “in the hot seat”, but these are means of effecting radical change. Apply heat. Dwell. Take on the image of what impresses you.

guillotine n. My boyfriend is afraid he can’t feel. When I grab his ribs, he looks confused. When I tickle his nose with a flower, he sputters. When I’m a tempest, he falls to his knees and begs, “Cut my head off, please.”

cutting mat n. There are things born for taking blade to skin. We call them self-healing because they swell to fill the cuts. But scars never disappear. We’re all self-healing, but all our bodies hum with the scores of our experiences.

bookmark n. I wish I believed in soul mates/destiny/certainty/god’s plan, but the best I can manage is something like an arrow inscribed “You Are Here” on the amusement park map, and an acknowledgment of the thread that gently holds me together.

awl n. Miracles exist mostly outside of the digital realm. No one’s written the code to explain my dreams. When machines fail us, we return to the tools from centuries before, to the muscle we’ve always known, to the sweat.

— selections from “A Bookbinder’s Pecha Kucha for Starving Artists”. Laura Yes Yes