i. preventive measures
i was battle struck and full of teeth i'd sink into the next man that would try to wrap his arms around me, a thick and woven cage of nettles and iron clasped against my sin, never again would a man take the love and kindness from me. i would stop giving it away and start to swear off all the best parts of myself so that i would never, ever feel so sticky tar and half cared about sin again.
ii. cracking
there was a risk in the sunlight trickling down the side of my face because there was warmth there, something i had not allowed myself to feel in a long, long time. my heart was concrete, so or i thought, then turned to mush and i cried for the first time in six months. i cried so long and so hard that the ominous and faintly there handprints washed into nothing but outlines and i could feel myself again. caging myself and all the most beautiful parts of me was also caging in the fingerprints and pieces of the crime scene and forever cementing them into fossilized version of myself petrified in that moment when body was coffin and spirit was not free.
iii. years later
still, there is an outline that swallows me whole sometimes.
iv. everyday after
i miss feeling like i belong to myself.
