You're scared of hospitals. Let's be honest, you've always been. Ever since you had your tonsils removed at five and your head stitched closed at eight, you knew this was a bad place. [[A nurse walks into your room.]]"Hello, honey," she says, sugar sweet. "I'm here to take some of your blood." [[Fuck no.]] [[I guess so.]]You hate needles. She holds down your arm as you struggle and you pass out from fear, waking up even more frightened. Your arm is bruised from wrist to shoulder, you must've put up a fight. You press two fingers against the IV in your wrist, the sore in your elbow's crook, and the gash along your thigh. [[Good job, sport.]]Where's your fighting spirit? Fuck the man! No, just kidding. You close your eyes as she stabs you and stabs you, trying to find your weak little pulse. Your lip begins to bleed from biting into it. [[Good job, sport.]] You remember your father telling you this as they carted you into the ambulance. Good job, sport. He only called you that when you were being [[a disappointment.]] He only called you that when he was [[angry.]]You failed one class your Freshman year of high school. One class and that's the only lesson you really learned that year. Don't fuck up, sport.After a night of drinking, he comes home to find your mother smoking on the couch, zoned out to the shopping network. You're standing on your step-stool, washing dishes. You cut your hand with a steak knife, bleeding red into the soapy water, you cry out. He's angry, drunk and absolutely pissed to shit, and [[you cry and you cry.]]He [[hates]] when you cry. He [[loves]] when you cry.He hates it because it reminds him he's fucked up in you. He hates it like he hated when your mother cried, but she doesn't anymore. She's so gone these days, numb and tingling, while you're hot and burning like a live wire. She left you for him.He loves winning. He hates losing. In your tears, he wins and wins and you lose and lose. That's okay though, he says, [[that's okay.]]Your thigh begins to bleed again, throbbing with pain and of mistake. Would you do it again? [[Yes, you would.]]