survival left a lot of damage¹
crystalline fragments of yesterday's armor
still embedded in the soft tissue of now²
while the mind catalogs each scar with
taxonomic precision³

the morning light dissects
old defense mechanisms
with the delicacy of an autopsy
performed by butterflies⁴
(their wings leaving dust
like diagnostic notes)

watching myself watch myself
through the kaleidoscope of
accumulated persistence⁵
each reflection more ornate
than the last, until the mirrors
forget which one was real

¹ The word "survival" implies success but contains within it the etymology of "over" and "live" - suggesting excess living, too much existence compressed into too little space

² Time being non-linear, the tissue remains perpetually "now," while the fragments exist simultaneously in past and present, like quantum particles refusing to choose a state

³ The mind's attempt to organize trauma reflects the baroque architecture of medieval reliquaries: beautiful containers for objects of pain

⁴ The butterflies represent not transformation (too obvious) but rather the impossibility of touching something without changing it - observer effect at the scale of memory

⁵ "Accumulated persistence" should be read as both a state of being and a medical condition, similar to how one might describe chronic inflammation in poetic terms