Cut the flesh upwards,
Bend your bone cot.
Be aware of everything,
Soul scissors don’t stop...
Our oceans stay so iron sweet,
And this will never change...
Our corrector eye lens cameras stay in range, far...
Our mystery.
Messy makeup burnt.
We’re not perfect but we are what we learn...
And this is where we start, from the pain beauty curves and carves a new art...

Grass too green,
sunlight ripped into jagged shards
by the fig tree’s fists of shadow.
Cupcakes bleeding frosting,
iced coffee sweating through paper cups.
We pretended it was a family.
We pretended.

Mum sat besides Dad,
like their bones remembered being joined.
Like his hands weren’t already holding someone else’s.
Like her vows weren’t chained to her job.

I opened my mouth.
The sugar rotted on my tongue.
Everything spoiled.
And I told them.

How I hunted for older hands.
How I thought I needed it.
How I wanted out when I saw the second man,
but the door was already locked.
How they used me.
How one carved into me,
split me open with steel,
left a word to rot inside my skin.

My own scars, I’ve loved.
They are mine,
my handwriting on my body.
But this one,
this one crawls.
It doesn’t heal,
it festers,
a maggot under the flesh,
hissing that I didn’t choose it.
A vandal’s tag on my skin.
An infection of me.

Dad’s face twisted, anger,
then collapse.
Mum’s face, vanished,
then drowned in tears.
The helpers, two statues,
faces carved like gravestones,
motionless as I gutted myself.

I clutched my ribs,
hugged myself,
but the scar pulsed,
thick, swollen,
as if it was laughing.
And no one reached for me.

The picnic died.
Flies feasted on icing,
ants drowned in coffee.
Mum and Dad pulled apart,
the rug split like torn flesh.
And me,
already in pieces,
my body a crime scene.

I dragged myself to the sun,
limped like the scar was a chain.
Collapsed.
Let the world blur.
Even in sleep,
I felt it twitch,
like a parasite feeding.  

When I woke,
a hand on my face.
Gentle. Slow.
Tracing me the way she once did
when I was a baby,
her fingers mapping me
like I was new to her again.

She avoided the carved word.
Her touch lingered on the scars I made myself,
as if she understood those belonged to me.
Her fingertips circled,
again and again,
like she was trying to write over the wound,
to overwrite the trespass,
to give me back the body I lost.

Mum beside me,
breathing clouds.
No words.
Just her arms,
finally closing around me.

And for one fragile moment,
the scar went still.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But almost forgotten.

I feel fractured.
Fractured into a million pieces.
Like the mirror that was hit
Or the bowl that was dropped.
Now I kneel on the floor,
Staring at the pieces.
How do I fix it?
Can I fix it with gold?
Like the ancient art of kintsugi?
But what if I can’t find the gold?
What if I continue to kneel
In the fractured pieces of my soul.
The pieces that continue to cut deep.
Because I am fractured,
Fractured into a million pieces.

I romanticize pain,
like it’s some kind of movie,
like it’s a fate
I live for.
no love,
still quiet —
like I’m longing for the sea
but afraid of water.
afraid of life,
so I get moldy inside.
no flowers,
just death.
birds cannot fall —
it hurts
more than a bee sting.
but I’m used to it.
the cut that always bleeds,
the cut you opened once
but can’t close now,
the cut
you have to live with.

No please not again
I worked so hard
Relapse...
Just for all the progress to be washed away in a second
I worked too hard I can't give up
Relapse...
The scissors are getting closer
I'm trying not to fail
Relapse...
My breathing quickens
It feels like there is only one right answer
Relapse...

I remember,
Going back to class,
After taking the knife to my skin.
By knife, I mean the stolen box cutter,
From engineering class.
Meant to be used for cardboard.

I remember,
Sitting through class.
Letting that ridiculous long skirt,
Absorb my ****** pain.
Fearing, it would seep through.
And someone would see.
Although it never did.
And no one saw.

I remember,
Hiding in the bathroom.
For three periods in a row.
Clawing at my thighs,
Because the only tool I had,
Was a pen.
So, I wrote cruel things.
Promises, words to end things.
And when I emerged, glazed.
No. One. Noticed.

I remember,
How much I wanted them to see me.
To look me in the eye,
And see my suffering.
But, no one did.
No. One.

I keep living
As though love
Comes with strings attatched
And try as I might
I cannot cut through
That lie.

Yes,
I cut deep enough
to feel alive
But never deep enough
To die