Sometimes I am baffled by how little I care. Scalding iron is poured down my throat and yet I cannot even bat an eye. How does my body not shiver in the wake of you? How am I not pulling out my hair, crossing and uncrossing my legs, fidgeting in ways that only seem to make me all the more mad? How is it that yesterday maybe I would have done those things but today I am a new person altogether? One who does not care for your sour tone and sweet lies. I know the difference between ugly and disfigured - the latter still beautiful. I know what sincere means when it is wrapped around me, tight, but not suffocating. I know that you were once a man before the hungry crows came to feast upon your flesh but just because you’re sick doesn’t mean I owe you anything; like you haven’t taken enough pieces of me to feed you through three winters when you swore you forgot my name. And so now I will ask again, how is it I can care so little now when yesterday I thought different? How are the waves inside of me unrelenting? How am I a goddess in the skin of an ordinary girl?
s.r., my withered heart reborn
