Jade McGlynn Poet Spoken Word

The sharp edge of silence

I used to wear long sleeves in summer.
Not for fashion.
Not for modesty.
But because my arms were a battlefield and I didn’t want anyone to see the war.

I was fluent in the language of quiet pain,
Smiles on my lips, emptiness in my eyes.
I thought the only way to stop the noise was to carve it out of me.
They tell you pain fades.
But they don’t tell you about the nights it doesn’t.
About towels pressed against skin,
Cold water turning pink,
Forgetting what your body looked like
before you hurt it.
They don’t tell you that sometimes you see a ghost in the mirror wearing your face.

But here’s what they also don’t tell you:
Healing happens in secret too.
Sometimes the first step isn’t a miracle.
It’s a pause.
The night you throw the blade away but still shake.
The day you let someone see your arm and you don’t apologize.
The morning you realize you haven’t hurt yourself in months, and didn’t even notice.

I used to think my scars were shame.
Now I see they’re survival marks
Proof that I stayed.
Each line a timeline,
Each healed wound a reminder
That the worst night of my life
Was not the last night of my life.

Healing is messy.
It’s sitting with feelings instead of running.
It’s therapy sessions where you don’t know what to say, 
But go anyway.
It’s replacing the blade with a pen and realizing paper bleeds better than skin.

Some days I still trace my scars,
But now I trace them like a map.
This one—when I thought I was alone.
This one—when I wasn’t.
This one—when I decided to stay.
My body is a roadmap back to myself.

And if you’re listening,
Standing at the edge
Thinking about the blade
Thinking about the silence after

I won’t lie:
Healing isn’t easy.
But it’s possible.
You are not your pain.
You are the breath between sobs.
The voice rising from the floor.
The trembling hands reaching for tomorrow.

You deserve tomorrow.
Stay until the day your scars turn soft and pale.
Stay until your laughter sounds like sunlight again.
Stay until you tell your story to someone else who’s hurting,
And they believe you because you’ve been there.

I used to wear long sleeves in summer.
Now my arms are bare.
Not because the scars are gone,
But because I’m not hiding anymore.
I am still here.
And you can be too.

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