Let’s Not Talk About It
Prose by Ada J. Raven
TW: graphic self-harm imagery
Let’s not talk about my highs and lows.
Not because they shouldn’t be spoken of,
but because the way you talk of them is painful to me.
I am doing the best I can with what I have right now,
and your words cut deeper than I ever thought possible.
I still love you very much,
while at the moment it’s clouded by loathing for myself.
Imagine words are knives and I already have several.
They’re blunted with use and I have to press hard to make a cut.
You, in your frustration, present me with new knives.
I throw mine to the side and take up yours;
I will eventually blunt these, too, and await the arrival of new ones.
Like Prometheus’s liver, my skin grows back
but always scarred and gnarled.
You cannot punish me harder than I punish myself.
I will prove it to you.
So let’s not talk about it.
