my body is a master in the art of letting go
- drawing blood with broken nails as they drag me away from you for my own good
- carving crescent moons with dulled teeth as i bite the hand that feeds me
- painting hearts in the condensation my breath leaves on the window as i beg to be let in
- etching your face into the inside on my skull like a caveman on the walls
- smudging the blue of no sleep under my eyes from nights spent asking why
- restoring the memories of what was as they get painted over daily with what is
- tracing the words embedded in the soft flesh of my heart graffitied by past trespassers
- creating narratives of a childhood i never had but wish i did and know i deserved
- sketching still lives of the fly swarmed bowl filled with the rotten fruits of my labour
- stippling paper with tears writing letters i won’t send to people who wouldn’t read them if i did
- sculpting words hard like marble to perfectly mimic flowing fabric and soft flesh
- staining my fingers dark red picking apart the carcass of every conversation i’ve ever had
- framing countless others for the crimes i continue to commit to myself
- casting dancing shadows of doubt in a puppet theatre of denial
- engraving metal plaques with names and dates for the filling cabinets of repression
- composing my features into a carefully orchestrated mask of polite indifference
- marking my territory like a threatened animal gnawing at the bars of my cage
- doodling eyes in the corner of notebooks so that i don’t write poems about them
- blending blame into conversations as coying shades of accountability
- sticking to my guns rather than admit dead is better than alone
- highlighting my faults right away with icebreakers masked as vulnerability
- crafting scenarios in which i’m justified in disturbing the peace
- rendering myself obsolete while reminiscing like a badly aged movie
- erasing painful memories to leave dark shadows on my past
- constructing house of cards foundations and being surprised by the collapse
- designing my online persona into a catwalk of perfect moments
- collaging the best and worst parts of my parents into the crude creature of myself
- shading my eyes from the glaring truths of the interrogation lights of familiarity
- cutting ties with children’s scissors for an excuse to leave fraying threads
- printing the memory of my flesh with a white hot brand into every body shared with me
call me jack of all trades, master of some.
Michaela Madziova
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