A Cleaner Wound

Delete a poem
to start another

That is the poem

That is the ceremony

One small death
inside a white screen

One mercy
I give myself
before language hardens
into something
I no longer recognize

I erase the line
that almost said it

I erase the word
that tried too hard

I erase the version of me
that wanted to be understood
so badly
she began explaining
instead of burning

And then

There it is

The emptiness

Clean
Terrifying
Mine

A field after fire

I have deleted so many poems
that were almost beautiful

So many lives
I almost lived

So many women
I almost became
because someone loved me wrong

Or almost loved me

Or stood close enough
to make me believe
heat was the same thing
as home

But I am learning

Not everything unfinished
deserves a shrine

Not every ache
needs a monument

Sometimes the holiest thing
is the backspace key

Sometimes the bravest thing
is to look at what you made
from pain
and say

No

Not this

Not yet

I can suffer better than this

I can love better than this

I can make
a cleaner wound

So I delete the poem
to start another

And for one bright second

I am not ruined

I am not abandoned

I am not the woman
waiting beside the sentence
for someone to arrive
and finish her

I am only here

Beginning again
with nothing but the ache and the audacity to believe it can still become beautiful