Scratching

There's always "content" in your heart or mind that can be put out there, if you want to scratch yourself bleeding that deeply. (Posting every day again it looks like, and though a lot's happened today the temptation is just to stick with something vapid, in which case I may as well not post.) Open-ended question, why do I want to protect the dark parts of myself, even though I see them as something external and of need to purge?