Everyone says I’m brave.
But all I did was sit still
while the world turned to fang.

God said,
Let there be skin—
then peeled it back
like he wanted to see
if I still believed in mercy.

A dog’s teeth unzipped me
like I got bored of metaphors
and decided to speak in tendon.

No poetry. Just flesh.
Just cartilage and fear
and me holding my nose
like a dropped heirloom,
still warm.

No one tells you
how heavy your own skin feels
when it’s not holding you together.
When you have to carry it
like a question
you never wanted answered.

Later, in the mirror,
I told myself the story
with no adjectives.
Just nouns.
Just blood.
Just the new shape of my nose,
a crescent of punctures,
a crater like an in-ground pool.

And now I’m supposed to write poems.
As if language can cauterize.
As if I haven’t already buried
a thousand versions of myself
under lowercase lines
and half-apologies.

The doctor asked, “Was it provoked?”
And I didn’t know
if he meant the dog
or me.

Because I have spent
my whole life
provoking things into loving me
just enough
to ruin me.

I did not scream.
I’ve done this before.
Not with teeth.
But close.

The dog lunged like judgment.
Jaws clicking shut
around my future face.
Blood—an old language
I thought I’d forgotten—
spelled its name down my arm.

The man at urgent care said,
“You’re very calm.”
I said thank you.
I meant:
I know how to bleed quietly.

The doctor said,
“You’re lucky it didn’t take more.”
And I nodded.
Like that was comfort.
Like that wasn’t a prophecy.

My face folded
like a map that’s been touched
by too many hands,
headed toward too many things
that never happened.

I keep dreaming
the dog comes back.
But not like revenge.
Like confirmation.
He finds me again,
points to the place that never bruised,
and says,
Here. This is where it lives now.
Then opens his mouth
and finishes what he started.