Come in.
I won’t ask what you survived.
I won’t ask what you left behind.
But if you want
you can place
I won’t ask what you survived.
I won’t ask what you left behind.
But if you want
you can place
your weight, your wait
here.
Next to mine.
Next to mine.
I didn’t draw this page from above,
but from within.
From the surgical table.
From the dream.
From a moment
I didn't know
if
my body beloned
to the sickness
or to the system
or to the silence.
I remember every line.
The way I trembled at the edge of the breast,
not from fear
but from knowing it might be looked at
by eyes that have never seen a body
Not even their own
I made the black line across the boy’s face
because I knew he would never be whole again
just like me.
I am the one who wrote
“tell me, my love, what can I do?”
a thousand times in the background
a glitch in language.
Because I knew
there would never be an answer
that didn’t require a wound.
I drew the pack of pills on the skin
because that’s what they do
they put the prescription inside the girl
and call it care.
They rename pain into dosages
and wonder why my lines won’t smile.
I recognize myself now, yes.
the girl who made that page
and didn’t know if she’d live enough
to explain it.
I made the black line across the boy’s face
because I knew he would never be whole again
just like me.
I am the one who wrote
“tell me, my love, what can I do?”
a thousand times in the background
a glitch in language.
Because I knew
there would never be an answer
that didn’t require a wound.
I drew the pack of pills on the skin
because that’s what they do
they put the prescription inside the girl
and call it care.
They rename pain into dosages
and wonder why my lines won’t smile.
I recognize myself now, yes.
the girl who made that page
and didn’t know if she’d live enough
to explain it.
I’ve laid my scars on the page.
Not to impress you.
But to say:
Here’s my wound. Show me yours when you’re ready.
This page is not an altar for pain.
It's a mirror in which I can be seen.
There is no front row.
There is only the circle.
There is only the warmth of
“me too,
maybe differently.”
So take your time.
Bring your breath.
You don’t have to understand the whole thing.
Just feel one line
just feel that there is
two chairs and a fire.
So if you’ve been holding something
a sketch, a sentence, a memory in its first skin
and you want to place it
into this fire,
quietly,
you can put it to rest.
It will burn like a letter addressed to both of us.
You can throw it in here