Selfish

the judge implores me: raise your right hand. do you swear to lie? the scalpel pulls my skin back, flaying eyes vivisect me on the witness stand for the crime of feeling anything other than confidence. my lips are sewn together with red thread, a gag order from my mother's mother whose mother smiled when she said big girls don't cry. it's passed down in my blood 80 generations of women who always had to try just a little harder than anyone else. my mother looked me in the eyes to tell me that it's selfish to be sad, and i haven't cried since. i am not diamond, but stone is good enough, and if i was any less i would shatter into a million mirror shards that reveal a seven-year-old who feels far too much, who has never been the rock for anyone at all. it's selfish, maybe, still i've locked her in my skull where she'll be safe, where she can't escape, but she beats at the back of my teeth, begging to be free, and i don't know how much longer i can hold her. she rests on the tip of my tongue in dark mornings and street-lit nights, her name burns the back of my throat and crawls up to sleep in the roots of my eyes because i can't bring myself to say it and set her loose. she tastes like salt and copper— acceptance wasn't made for me. i can't let her be seen. i will hide this part of me until it hides itself. (the truth is that i'm scared.)