the doctor said I’m healing

the doctor said I’m healing

and it started in the marrow—

The kind of silence that scrapes its nails

along the inside of your skull.

A slow itch, like rot thinking, trying.

I could feel my bones learning to bend around something not mine.

I wonder if that’s what healing feels like;

the shivers, the bile, the grit teeth, the way breathing seems like a chore.

The noise, gods the noise. The you don’t call anymore, why are you like that, this was years ago. The we made you someone, it didn’t harm you, you turned out fine.

So I carved the noise out.

Made some room in my heart for nothing much.

Split my tongue so it could argue with itself.

Gave it a name.

It’s anger, and so pretty—

in the mirror, on my tongue, and in the beautiful ruin of my little self.

But a name wasn’t enough.

It still pulses under my skin, like a second heartbeat.

So tell me—

what would you do if your mind gnawed you from the inside?

Do you stop running?

Split your ribs open like a door?

Let it crawl out—slick with memory,

clutching your new voice in both hands?

Dress it in your skin?

Teach it how to smile?

It will love you better than they ever loved you.

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