Au moment de démêler mes cheveux
the day you cut yourself
you have to hurt
lose
some trace of past
much beloved
forming solace
the retreat within
only then, not even then
take one shuffled step forward
you are not yourself anymore
you are the one you became
when they ate your heart
licked the plate clean
no need to wash
 
it’s not true
you stay the same afterward
you do not
you are extinguished
half reborn
each time or only once
harder
a shell of former self
patting scars down
like fur
refusing to smooth
 
when I laid my head
on your lap
my hair spilled across your knees
down to the floor
just as my tears now
will fill me with the strength
to cut out the part of me
holding you
it is nearly all of my sum
 
so necessarily
I will start as nothing
build slowly into an approximation
something will be sacrificed
something will be lost
never to return
it is the part of me that could trust
it is the rope of my devourment
 
I will be shorn
of the muscles of my heart
for you took everything
leaving only
a pair of scissors
glinting on tabletop
if I stretch out
I can reach
their
steel