This desire to externalize my blood so much, I think electrolysis is where it started. I've always wanted it, but the desire wasn't so intense before. They stab these probes into your follicles and electrocute parts of your body until those sections die. Sometimes they miss and you bleed a little. I used to dread it every time, viewing it as senseless torture, and then I realized I did it for others. I did it to be accepted, and I thought maybe the pain was inflicted on me for the sake of others. I thought about everyone who hated what I was becoming as the tears rolled down my cheeks, tears they'd never see but would delight in knowing that they had inflicted, that they had infected me so.
And then I remember the first time I nuzzled my boyfriend in the morning, stubbleless. I remember the euphoria of a smooth chin rubbing against someone, of waking up for the first time without feeling shame, and in that moment I became WOMAN. This bleeding I undergo, perfectly timed to my hormonal cycle, was not torture senselessly but rather the pain of womanhood I must accept. It is divine. I cannot menstruate, I will never have cramps so I must take on another punishment. Made from my own ribs, I will feel this pain over and over, and each time I experience it I'm made more woman. The pain has become mythologized, and I no longer dread it. Sometimes it hurts so much I even look forward to it, and as it hurts I get an endorphin high, a high that I interpret as divinity flowing through me.
Of course, one day that pain will end and what then? Will I be woman forever? Today I'm made to bleed, but tomorrow I will bleed myself. I want to master my own pain, master my own blood, master my own womanhood by taking control of all the blood in my body, only having it leave whenever I want it to, and being used for my own purpose.