Saliva, stitches and the shape of survival

#prompt12PC

Prompt

i did not grow up into a sculptor

but i definitely grew up into a poet because

my knotted brain doesn’t know

how to sculpt flesh around a wound

But it certainly knows how to

crochet words around it.

It loves to lick every uneven stitch

that is keeping my sanity from unraveling.

Perhaps it believes that the histatin in saliva

can heal the aching split between

who I am and who I was as easily as it can

heal the little cuts on my skin.

And maybe that’s why I house

a thousand versions of myself inside this skin.

Each tucked in a marble room.

Some whispering regrets,

some mourning futures,

Some just watching as I sit in silence and pretend

Everyday there’s a riot in the architecture

versions of me arguing over who

gets to drive the body today.

Some want to stay in bed,

some want to write until their fingers bleed,

some just want silence.

(No one wins)

But none of them agree on how to carry

the weight of a name that’s been

stretched across too many versions of myself.

They build altars out of habits,

bury memories beneath metaphors,

and call it survival.

I call it muscle memory.

in reality this architecture of ache

is poetry,

not proof

that I never quite healed.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ i feel like i messed

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ this one up:))

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

images from pinterest