In the before, I didn’t stare at my naked self in mirrors. I contended. I blamed my body for its accumulated sadnesses, certain it was no good.
Yet I find myself here, morning light creeping golden into my bedroom from cracks around blackout curtains, staring at a line that slithers up my torso. The scar is pinkish purple, six inches long. An ink drop shape at its base beckons my thumb, a snake coiled in its den.
The line is the path of a surgeon’s late-night scalpel.
The line is a word: sick.
The line looks shimmery, luminescent like salmon skin.
Published October 2026
