She carried ghosts in mason jars,
lined them up on windowsills
like preserved peaches,
sweet and rotting in the light.
Her thoughts were birds
with broken wings,
circling the same dead tree
in her mind's backyard,
never landing, never flying away.
The therapist's office became
a confessional booth for the godless,
where she paid by the hour
to excavate the archaeology
of her own ruin—
layer by layer, year by year,
until she found the fossil
of the girl she used to be.
She spoke in riddles
wrapped in barbed wire,
each word a small violence
against the silence
that had been her longest
relationship.
Her trauma wore her clothes,
walked in her footsteps,
answered to her name.
She was a ventriloquist
for her own pain,
mouth moving but the voice
always coming from somewhere else.
In group therapy,
she sat in circles
like a séance for the living,
watching other people's demons
dance in the fluorescent light,
recognizing her own reflection
in their fractured mirrors.
The healing came in small doses—
bitter pills she swallowed
with coffee that tasted
like hope mixed with resignation.
Some days she felt like origami
being carefully unfolded,
other days like paper
being torn apart.
She learned to name her monsters,
to feed them scheduled meals
instead of letting them
devour her at random hours.
She built a zoo in her chest
with proper cages,
visiting hours,
do not feed the animals signs.
The girl who needed therapy
became the woman who sought it,
who paid for it,
who sat in uncomfortable chairs
and did the work
of becoming human again,
one broken piece at a time.
She almost became my mother again.
But not quite the same.