showering will never be enough.
no water runs deeper
than the hands that stayed.
i stayed in there so long
thinking maybe, when i stepped out,
i would leave her behind
the girl who flinches at her own skin.
but the truth is,
I carried her with me.
the girl with her hands over her mouth,
with a voice trapped in her chest,
with a body that learned
how to be quiet.
I feel it on me, rough
like a nail filer scraping
back and forth,
until the edge is gone.
i feel it on me when eyes
measure my shape,
polish it into something earned,
something claimed.
not a person
a prize.
a place to discard what they don’t want.
At night, the door opens again.
or maybe it never closed.
his face appears,
or maybe it’s memory wearing his shape.
Like the time we would go to the park and
I’d see your shadow as you pushed me to the sky
On those big blue swings.
I gasp.
I sweat.
I breathe.
I gasp.
I sweat.
I breathe.
He kept score
A score he knew
He was allowed to keep
That’s what happens
When the family runs deep.
I know that now.
as if i were a tally,
as if time with me could be counted
and closed.
not a name.
not a girl.
just numbers in a game
I never agreed to play.
so i scrub again and again
until my skin forgets itself,
until red replaces brown,
until pain feels simpler
than remembering.
I want to believe
that if enough of me peels away,
something clean will be left behind.
But I know better.
this isn’t the ending.
there is no final rinse.
nothing will ever be enough
and still,
I keep trying.