Your tongue,
a blade that remembers
where I am softest,
where the scar tissue is thinnest.
You wield it without hesitation.

You ask for acceptance
as if I owe it
to the thing that has hollowed me out,
made me flinch at shadows,
left me raw and singing
with wounds I did not choose.

Sorrow has blackened the horizon.
The future—
a thing I used to believe in—
is now a quiet ache
that hums under my skin.

I flinch at your sarcasm.
It’s a whip,
a steady rhythm of harm
I cannot outrun.

And the problem you refuse to see—
it is breathing.
It is alive.
It soars above me like a black kite,
leaving me marked in ways
I can never explain.

I search for home
as though it’s a place that exists,
a place that will hold me
without splintering.

But you—
you crown yourself in their love
while their laughter
cuts you from behind.
Every sacrifice I make
is a ghost.

You hand them my offerings,
giving them weight they do not deserve.
And here I stand,
naked of hope,
bare of safety,
still whispering your name
like a prayer
to a god who doesn’t answer.