I am allowed to release that rage. So that it doesn’t fester inside of us, inside my heart, where the infection of revenge once set in, a long time ago.

I asked if you kept the old habits. You smiled without teeth and said, “the best place to hide track marks is between your toes.” You wear your wounds so plain in your messiah sandals.

Now, as I am one year and seven months from thirty, I understand the infinity of growing old. I imagine myself as recycled clay. Formed into this year, grabbed by another and shaped into that one—but where is the kiln? Where is the sun that dries the grapes?

I still think about the endocrinologist lifting my shirt to see how my ribs were jutting out of the skin.

I'm not asking for much. I want to feel human.

She calls me petulant. Maybe she’s right.

Words are only half of how we speak.