Dear 020298,

I exist, at times just barely, for the careful ways you tear me open.
You always find the truths I’ve left unspoken but I’m not hiding from you, I’m hiding from me.
That last conversation left me raw stripped exposed and god knows I pay the price in private.
You hold the scalpel with precision for each incision, it’s better that you do it, so I don’t have to anymore.

It’s romantic in a way, how you exsanguinate the places that are begging to feel
and on the days I don’t feel real, you shove me back into my body.
Call me impulsive, inconsistent, as long as you keep calling I’ll keep crawling toward a future.
You say that I’m a pendulum, swinging between control and having none,
not wanting to be seen but always feeling far away.

Tell me about choices, remind me how to pronounce “no”.
You say you have to go, but I’m still sitting here an open wound.
It’s been four months, six numbers, and one space where I can bleed.