When my ****** texted me after 3 years of silence My body shattered I've spent all this time picking up the pieces glueing them into place like a puzzle that doesn't quite fit You swing at me with a hammer Chipping away at me like the paint I chipped off the deck with my grandpa summers before I met you. I am the opposite of forgiveness Sharp teeth, howls of rage, and jagged edges If our bodies turned red where unwanted fingers like claws, carved into us, I would look like I was bleeding out I don't know when I became a space to be filled I have made you as ghost story as possible Using you only as a joke at my own behalf or cautionary tale. When you're only a story I can close at night and pull out when I want to, I can pretend you've left no scars on this forsaken body of mine But when you text me out of no where, I find you've taken my autonomy once again. I find that I'm once again stuck between your teeth. Every probing text is gasoline that I swallow with a smile. You think I turn to ice because I have frozen. I am ice turned fire And I'll burn the whole **** world with me if I have to. My body is constantly in fight or flight, rigid with the possibility of springing into action. Never quite relaxed enough to forget past sins made against me. When people ask me, with sneers on their faces, if every adams apple I see reminds me of a fist, I tell them no. Because one of the faces that haunts me has deep brown eyes and soft skin, like my own. She hid claws under royal blue painted nails and cinnamon scented gum.