I spend the night searching for
the broken parts of my necklace. Scattered between the birth in the
backyard and the hot pink wig on my roomate-in-law’s floor.
Pieces sizzle under the hot flash as it burns another hole
into my iris, forcing me to feel every pixel as it materializes
on the camera and swims its way into the next month’s identity crisis.
Glass teeth bite my neck, but I let the deep sparkle reflect
the sticky sweat of my veins. I want to bleed, to stain my skin
with proof that something has been trying to get out. I finally stop letting the shards
blind. Loose wire pokes at the back of my head, picking the longest strand from
my buzzcut to haul into the front of my mind. A needling reminder me that I could take
as much time as I need but if I didn’t decide what to do with my hair, it’ll continue to grow. The room
spins around me. Sweat wallowing the air whole, coating the walls in
something sticky and half alive. I keep blinking against
the burn, waiting for the world to settle into one body long
enough for me to recognize it. Maybe this is what becoming feels like.
Not a chrysalis splitting open, but wire cutters granting metal. Tiny mirrors hand from my throat, forcing me to look at myself in fragments. Watching
my reflection split apart in every steel surface I pass. A body crawling
towards itself on bruising hands and glittering knees. Wire curls around
my fingertips while I search the floor for what’s missing. Dig
under chipped nail paint and dust until the sunrise
burns another hole into my eyes. By morning
I have all the pieces back together.
Crooked. Bleeding. Shining.
Like something finally wanting to, willing to be seen.
In the
backyard, I am
born screaming.
