I.

For a while I carried words like weapons.

Saw them only for their sharpened edges

the way in which they could slice,

leave mouths open, gasping,

they way they burrowed into skin

and clanged like gongs in the silence

of lonely, sleepless nights.

I had enough scars of my own to show

just how dangerous words could be.

I knew where to aim for,

which veins would bleed the most.

 

II.

Anger can only burn on a short fuse.

It fizzles out after a while

and you are left cold,

holding knives slick with your own blood.

No one warns out about the energy

that pain steals.

The way the hollowness can swallow

whole

everything you had built of yourself.

III.

Healing takes time.

On nights when I’m awake and he is not

I pick words from beneath my skin,

the ones I half forgot,

scabbed over but not yet gone.

I will turn them over in the blue light

from the wireless router on the night stand,

and try to make sense of a handwriting

not seen in  years.

I will tell myself I am older,

wiser,

more mature.

I will pretend they do not hurt anymore.

Daily Prompt: Carry