After the Cutting

Originally published in Anti-Heroin Chic (forthcoming, February 2026)

I shed what is no longer mine—
the hunger handed down
like heirloom lace,
the thin ideal
like wire
tightening my ribs,
the old script that pared me down.

I bloom—
in the ruined soil,
where the spade split me open,
in the dirt where the roots
were torn out
and the sky stared
and did nothing.

I bloom—
nothing miraculous here.
Just something that lives
because it does.