I cut the tip of my thumb off and my blood hesitated to bleed.

its not the knife's fault

It’s currently bandaged, strapped and bound with tape and aids. All I was doing was cutting some garlic when I sliced right through it. Clear through, there was no forcing the knife’s movement. I released the tension of the knife in my r-hand—and in doing so—the knife drew my hand down in waltz and through the tip of my l-hand’s thumb. The knife was very sharp. I don’t blame the knife and I don’t think my hands are at war with one another. I try to attend to both as equals. Plus, I hadn’t hesitated, I trusted the knife’s movement. I was confident in my hands working together. Up and through and down. Repeat.

In fact, the only hesitation I did notice proceeded the tip of my thumb being severed. My blood waited to bleed. As if waiting in a respectful mourning of the nerve-ending losses from my skin’s print. It waited to bleed, fearful to make a mess. Afraid to pool it’s rich red hue across the bench. I’m sure the bench wouldn’t have minded.

It waited to bleed, I was worried about my blood. Why was my blood nervous? Or what was it nervous about? Hidden away, hardly noticeable if you’re not looking. Easy to miss if you’re not looking at your blood regularly. Yes, regularly. As you close your eyes you’re privy to trillions of little blood cells and thousands of pulsating capillaries. Fovea. Easy to miss if you’re of the mind that when you close your eyes everything goes dark; if you’re of the way of thinking that nothing can be found in the dark; if you mind mining your mind—to recognise, to find—sensations of blood taking place all the time. Blood mutating, pulsing, splitting, refracting; the more I look onto my blood the more it looks onto me. But who am I to suggest that we see our blood by simple means of seeing.

Now, exposed to this outside territory, my blood was afraid to look onto me without the concessions of the dark. As if to see, I pulled my hand closer to let the cut touch and fill the darks of my eyes. And recognising my gawking peek, as I nodded thinking of reciprocity, my cut—the cut—began to bleed it’s—my, our—blood. The blood began to bleed it’s blood. In light of the dark in the pupil of my eye, my blood began to bleed and I began to cry. Not in pain, nor in fright, but with the recognition, that in the furrows of these small moments, how tender everything is when waiting to be seen.

I can still feel where the tip of my thumb used-to be and I wonder if, hidden under the surface, there exists more timid blood waiting to pool?