there’s that quote on the internet that goes, “every cell in the human body replaces itself after 7 years, one day i will have a body that you have never touched,”

and it is false. asides from the fact that many cells need ten years before they’re fully replaced, neurons in the cerebral cortex never do; even if some die, you keep the ones you were born with and my body is clean from your touch, but my mind was not as lucky to escape your poison and day-by-day i erode until i’m left shaking and sobbing, wishing i could rip my own skin off and crack through my skull to peel away layers of my stupid, stubborn, recalcitrant brain.

maybe it was my fault. i should’ve known better than to trust a demon in a man suit, but i was looking at the small flickering coals of you, a fire built at your birth and then forgotten along the way, so you had nearly died even as you lived, so i gently fed the fire and stoked the flames and in return you blazed up in one mighty inferno and scorched me and everything and everyone else around us and it was still i who was contrite, you turned this around on me and it was i who apologized and collapsed crying on the floor.

mom never told me not to play with fire, it’s my own ****** fault i got burned.