I cut myself to see what’s inside my body.
I hid the razor blade under a rock outside.
It was an accident, I told the people who love me.
I saw my blood drip on the red bedsheets
like an animal who uses camouflage to lie.
I cut myself to remove the dirty part of my body,
but I was surprised by how much I could bleed.
My wound gushed a dark night of starlight.
It was an accident, agreed the people who love me,
but in their eyes I saw they didn’t believe.
A moth appears to be the rock on which it alights.
I cut myself to forget the shape of my body
and remember how ketchup looked so tidy
when I spread it on a hamburger with a knife.
If there were an accident, how scary to see me
with blade in my flesh, red pouring on the meat,
my parents coming to save me before I die.
I cut myself to open a mouth on my body.
It was an accident, but I could finally breathe.