i'd bleed from every pore on
this slimy integument
if it'd make you turn and see me.
i could coax stomach bile up my
esophagus nightly to convince my mother to
hold me.

sickness is the same as
comfort
when you are seven and unlovable
unloved,
you remind me
not unlovable.
the words get
switched up in my brain, neurons
fire at the same time, and
sodium and potassium can taste like
blood.

after sixth period.
my hands: covered in clay
i don't wash it off
does the act of creating make me lovable?
loved.
lovable.
what's the difference there?

an eight-year-old adult envisions a hospital.
Stage Right: a quiet,
crowded room. At least ten
people fill plastic stiff chairs. The air smells of
death.
ANXIETY.
They all face the center of the
room. An eight-year-old adult child groans.
RELIEF.
The adult's mother weeps.
Have you once seen
such love for one eight-year-old
adult?
The lengths a child goes through to be
understood.
elle devrait se sentir pathétique.
The vision swerves around this
minor life-threatening crisis. Their
love.
for the eight-year-old adult remembered, the
ten pledge not to commit
some unnamed trespass
Her life is changed in an hour.

a sixteen-year-old child. you're complaining.

Father, forgive me, for I know not what I do.

Father, help me forgive their trespasses

Father, am I forgiven?

the child is an adult until
she learns she isn't. the fault
was not once hers,
no matter the lengths she went to earn
redemption.