THE CUT
On the quiet precision of self-betrayal.
Nimila the Inferno prompt didn’t feel like a prompt. It felt like recognition.
I sat with it in the woods…old patterns brushing at the edges, the body remembering what it once called relief. But those were never the cuts that marked me.
/////
it wasn’t a line
not clean
not surgical
not something you could trace with a finger and say
here
it moved
shifted under the skin like a thought you almost catch
then don’t
/////
someone said something once
or maybe they didn’t
a door closed
or maybe I stayed
there are versions of it
stacked
like glass
like breath
like almosts
/////
I remember the sound of it
not sharp
soft
like fabric tearing slowly in another room
like my name being used incorrectly
so many times it became mine
/////
there were others
hands
voices
eyes that didn’t see but decided anyway
they left impressions
indentations in places that didn’t belong to them
I wore those for a while
called them history
called them love
called them something I had to understand
/////
but this…
this wasn’t theirs
/////
this was quieter
happened in the pause
between knowing
and not moving
between the body leaning away
and the mouth saying
it’s fine
/////
a repetition
small
precise
devotional
like returning to the same place on the skin
again
again
again
until it opened
not wide
just enough
/////
it learned me there
in the hesitation
in the rearranging
in the way I folded truth into something more acceptable
more swallowable
less me
/////
things began to blur
edges softened
pain renamed itself
I called it patience
called it growth
called it depth
anything but what it was
/////
and it stayed
not because it couldn’t close
but because I kept touching it
kept checking
kept pressing
kept choosing
/////
sometimes I think I see it in others
in the way they smile slightly off-centre
in the way their sentences trail
in the way they hover just outside of themselves
we recognise each other
not by what was done to us
but by what we quietly continue
/////
and then…
a stillness
brief
unwelcome
clear
/////
it wasn’t them
not the voices
not the hands
not the almost-meanings I built entire worlds around
/////
it was me
/////
not once
not violently
not even consciously
/////
but consistently
carefully
with a precision no one else had access to
/////
I made the cut
/////
and then I learned how to live
as if I hadn’t
Ami.🖤
Wow. Sitting in the woods writing this amazing piece, I am sure the trees heard and felt everything. Intense and powerful. Thank you for sharing.
Love this Ami. The power oozes off the page as the cuts go deeper and deeper. That you took this to the woods to write makes complete sense, and there's something in the words that comes through there from that energy.