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 haven’t had therapy in weeks.
he’s been on holiday,
i’ve been working.
too much.

the days stack up like
empty dishes by the sink.
sometimes it’s so bad,
i have to dig my nails
into my own skin
to stop myself
from walking away.

but then i think of you —
how you are the only thing
that gets me through the day.
i could not turn my back.
your name is the rope
i wrap around my wrist,
and stay.

sometimes
i need to remind myself
you’re my therapist,
not my buddy.
but man,
i wish i could text you.

i’m breaking
to pieces,
tearing
at the seams —

could you please
clear your calendar
for me?

I found out you moved on,
you’re with another woman.

I felt nothing.

I thought I would cry,
tear my hair out over you—
but I think I love myself now.

My weekly therapy sessions worked.

Wholeness
That must be the word
If it’s not, that’s fine
I couldn’t care less
I know what I feel, and I can’t deny it
My verses are not for you
They’re for me
Period.
If you understand, congratulations
If not, I’m sorry
Go find a book—one with over a thousand words
Even better if it’s self-help
I need only a few words to say what I want
My therapy is in the verses
I owe nothing to anyone
Liberating
That could be the word too
Doesn’t matter to me
I simply cross my legs in the hammock
and spot a new world of possibilities
waiting for me

My therapist says the words I’ve carried
might not fit me after all.

And I don’t know who I am without the illnesses I’ve been certain of.

They were a soft alibi, not to excuse the harm, but to explain it.
a small cushion between me and the truth.

Without them, every bruise I’ve left behind
belongs only to me, and I am terrified that the truth is this:
I was never sick...
I was just cruel.