Lies I never told, but never clarified

They with masks and scalpels rewatch the seconds I was given without consent. My breath hitches as warnings stillborn in my throat. At this moment, I am but a body opened for overdue answers no one asked for. A poet’s gift lies in the voice of Truth. No— A poet's gift is to lie, constantly, in lavender-gray syllables threaded through with near-Truth— The answer to unvoiced questions, clipped out with tweezers, a scorched coil— my vocal cord. I, a third-party haze— rewatch the moments I lived through like faint breaths fogging an oxygen mask. My lies will be forgiven, when they split open my sternum, and find Truth still beating— They’ll know, late Truth cuts deeper than scalpel.