I ask everyone if they're hurting too;
not out loud, but I know a yes when I see it.
I used to hoard my wounds and say I needed to keep them to heal.
I didn't hear how it sounded.
All of the rooms in my house were stacked with them.
You could smell them, like green apples mashed into dirt bitter and sweet and the patch of earth that devoured them.
Anyone else who saw them would say,it's dangerous, they'd say, what if they fall over on you and you can't get yourself out from underneath them?
TLC would have probably wanted to make a show about it;
some people would have watched to make memes of my spiral into panic and rage clawing back the day I laid on my grandfather's chest after he died (waiting for it to rise, holding my own breath so long my vision went black and I didn't even notice).
Slapping someone for trying to take the year and a half I got called a cruel nickname by most of my peers. I wouldn't have sex with an older boy,
so he wanted to hurt me so he hurt me.
Of course, there would have been one of me curled up on the floor after I went to the bathroom and they took the chance to throw away all the times I opened my mouth about abuse and was ignored, shamed, told I'm a liar.
I'd have pulled everything back in through the front door and locked it,
I'd have told them to fuck off through the window.
Anyway, that channel is garbage along with a lot of the rest of the world.
Still,
because they'd have wanted to see my growth.
Some people would have watched for the light to come back on behind my face, for me to look through.
Some people would have watched like a person again.
Some people would have watched for when I was ready to call the big
truck, for when I threw everything in and I cried and realized I was safe.
Some people would have cried on their couches with me.
Some people would have wanted to know that in the end, I got to be happy.
