I bleed. I bleed. I bleed inside and out. Tears taste like blood. It hurts, a searing pain. In the dark, tears feel like blood. I bleed.

I used to have a friend who was suicidal for a while. Had scars here and there. Thin scars from hesitant scratches and deeper ones that criss-crossed over each other. Scar arm rings, scar patterns. For my friend, letting blood flow was release. The pain brought peace. I think it also brought a feeling of power. I touched the scars and understood the pain, the peace, the power … and the loneliness. Cutting oneself is natural. (Sin-)Nature calls for outward manifestation of the inward.

Peoples throughout history, believing power is in the blood, would drink the blood of powerful foes. They cut themselves in sacrifice to their gods. Blood marks life or death, seals oaths. It is the only price for sin. It is the ultimate sacrifice.

Life comes through death. For half the human race, the periodical finger-tremblingly, mind-numbingly painful flow is life and death. It is a release from P-M-mess. Every month is a miscarriage, death flaunting its power and pain. Every month there is hope for new life. Deflowerment is a sacrifice, the bloody sealing of a life-long love-oath. Mothers rejoice to sacrifice blood in giving birth.

Living oblivious to blood, buying bloodless meat instead of hacking our food to death, has taken us away from remembering what is pumping inside us. Really, we’re walking blood-bags. The Bible is a bloody, bloody book, demanding blood, every day, every month, all year. But no amount of blood was enough, until the Serpent, the Hen, the Lion, the Lamb, the Man. All blood points to the most precious, most powerful blood, the greatest pain ever endured, greatest sacrifice ever made, the defeat of death, the victory of Life.

I’d always wondered. Why must I bleed? Why must I hurt? I don’t wonder anymore. To cut oneself, to cut others, to seek blood is perversion because it denies His. The Man of Sorrows knows all sorrow. And remembering He knows sorrow takes it away.

I am blessed to bleed. I remember He bled for me. I am marked with His blood. That life-blood is the only thing that makes me precious. I drink Him every week. And soon enough, I will be with Him, blessed to bleed no more.