Article written by Aveline Yang
Illustration by Suhani Kapadia
This piece was originally published in ‘Chimera’, Bossy’s 2022 print edition.
When you stopped loving me
Revulsion seeped
To every extremity
Bombing my body with blight
Shot patterns of slits and circles
Marking each conceivable scar
In every mirror I passed
I only saw your hatred
Crawling skin plastered in toxic labels
WARNING: FRAGILE
You made me a stranger
To myself
Mired in the mundane days
I mangle myself anew
Purging your bile and wretch
Scraping the film of us off my bones
Beating away the strangling smog
That poisons my dreams
Slowly
I see me clearer
Than I could before you –
Loosen your chokehold, darling
I am becoming mine again
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