The Cut
The following is in response to a prompt provided by @Nimila
Which one was the deepest?
I’ve lost track. Why count?
The number doesn’t matter.
How does the body remember ?
It must be the wounds that lie
Deeper beneath the surface
Buried but never forgotten.
The wounds that left a scar or
The more insidious ones that are invisible
But persistent, defying oblivion.
For me, the ones that kept reopening
Were the ones that resulted
From the same origins.
The feeling of being on the margins
The pain of never being mainstream
The shame of never seeming cool
The desperation of wanting to belong
The haunting fear of not measuring up
The rejected, the forsaken, the undermined, the mislabeled.
Somewhere along the way, I lost track.
Who was I?
Waiting for validation seemed like a stupid game.
The odds were stacked against me.
The intensity of the pain dulled with time, but the wounds reminded me
That the distance of time and space
Was a temporary reprieve
The ache returned in unexpected moments.
A belittling remark, a dismissive reaction,
A sarcastic smile opened the floodgates and I was
My younger self again.
The only way to assuage the pain was to
acknowledge and try to release it
And realize that I was enough
Scars and all.


This is such a powerful piece. I could resonate with so many things here. Thank you for sharing.
Nabanita- I could feel the pain so deeply. great job!
I will be posting a response to Nimila’s prompt tomorrow, also:)