Somewhere in the back left pocket of your childhood,
your mother’s tongue is moving against your father’s hips.
They are making you, a you that would not exist if she had slit her wrists
like she wanted to when she was seventeen.
Evolution made us all grow up with bones ready for the breaking,
but your weather vein wrists do not have to be perpetually prepared
for a jagged streak of lightning to open them up and spill out red rain.
You have had days where even the worst of the worst
came nowhere close enough to describing how it felt
to walk into a forest wishing it would light itself on fire
or a wheatfield hoping for every yellow blade to thresh itself
or a river wanting nothing more than the water to drown itself dry
just so you’d feel less alone.
But see, sometimes what feels like love is really just something ugly
that starts out as a wedding band and then gradually begins
to suffocate the wearer by growing far too tight.
Razorblades are not love. They were made for whittling wood,
not skin. You are not a demolition; you don’t need this tool.
You are a carpenter, so build yourself back up with each bare palm,
cake mortar between every wound so thick
that nothing will ever slice those bricks apart again.
Throw away the razorblade. Throw away the razorblade.
Hard as you can, till it lands in the trashcan
and hits rock bottom instead of you this time.
Until your mother can hear the sound all the way in the other room
and remember how glad she is
that she threw hers away too, seventeen years ago.
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
