To Those Who Ask About My Stitches

I woke up into a dream

of medicinal white linen

unable to move but with a soul restless.

Tubes, tubes everywhere

a tube on my neck

vacuuming the fragments of ill put sentences.

All that air within.

A voice without.

That’s what bitterness feels like in a young child.

Now there are stitches on my neck

where hateful words cut

as they tried to fight their way out of my throat.

It’s from that time my tongue had not yet matured enough to articulate the pain.

A time my tongue was not sharp enough to stab back.

TO THOSE WHO ASK ABOUT MY STITICHES