Thousand

I'm just fine, she says.
But you can tell in the way her voice sounds,
That weak, soft thing, her voice.
It sounds as if she has been through the troubles of a thousand men, each with a thousand tragedies.

I'm just fine, she says.
But you can tell from the red swollen skin around her eyes, the red snotiness of her nose, that she is in fact, not. Her eyes, a dead, hollow look about them. They look as if she has shed a thousand tears.

I'm just fine.
Her skin tells a different story. It seems as though she runs through a jungle of barbedwire and razor blades daily. The red, puckered healing lines, the white, barely visible scars, the dark, deep cuts of distant past.
There seems to be a thousand.

I'm fine,
She whispers through a smile.
She is now truly happy, laying in her porcelain death bed, up to her chin in hot water, thick, maroon liquid rising from the deep gashes along her body.
Finally.
True bliss of a thousand gods.