Some days it really does feel like I’m made of scraps and stitching—torn by lines, mended by words. Not in a dramatic way, but in that quiet, everyday sense. I’m sitting with a draft, and the page is a little mess, full of crossed-out things and sideways arrows, and there’s this one line that keeps looking at me sideways. It landed in my notebook last night: “I am not what the mirror remembers.” I don’t remember thinking it, but there it is, insisting on its own existence.
I read it again and feel it in my chest, like my body clocked the truth before my brain did. There’s a kind of hush that sits with me in that moment. Sometimes I think queerness shows up in my writing like that—gentle, sidelong, refusing to explain itself. Blackness, too, quiet and present, not shouting but holding space. I love that about my own words, even when I want to argue with them. I want to be soft in my poems, even when I feel jagged.
The funny thing is, I didn’t set out to write anything big, just wanted to put something down that felt real. It’s a relief, honestly, to let a line surprise me. I guess there’s something tender about trusting the language to do its thing, letting it be messy and strange at first. Maybe mending isn’t about fixing the torn places, but about making something honest out of them.
I’m going to leave that weird little line where it is for now. Not going to fuss with it. Sometimes the best part of writing is just letting something small and unexpected sit with you, soft and stubborn as it wants to be.