Free Verse Poem
Have you ever woken up feeling like a guest
inside your own skin-
as if every bone were borrowed, every breath
a reminder that your body no longer belongs to
you?
I move through the world like fog pressed to glass:
vision blurred, footing slipping,
always on autopilot, always searching for an exit
in a house that forgot I once lived there.
I only feel whole when I’m fractured,
when smoke coils through my fingers
and liquor burns its way down my throat.
My vices are not comfort-
they’re camouflage,
something loud enough to drown out the
flashbacks,
to hush the voice that whispers through the
cracks:
It was your fault.
I remember everything-
how it felt to be unmade
by the same hands that once held me with care,
how I became a thing,
a possession,
a body stripped down
to what could be taken and left.
It was violating.
It was terrifying.
But somehow, the shame didn’t just linger-
it grew roots inside me,
wrapping itself around the places
I had once felt safe.
I wish I could unzip this flesh,
peel away the memories,
scrub the fingerprints from my thighs
until there is nothing left
but tissue
and nerve.
Some days, I believe healing is possible-
that I might still gather life
from a ground left barren.
Other days,
my nightmares wear my face
and speak in my voice.
And still,
beneath the splinters
beneath the debris
and the grief I didn’t ask to carry-
I want my body back.
The Altar 