A Thousand Paper Cuts
I want you to read my words
and feel like you’ve been stabbed to death.
Let my words cut so deep—
a thousand paper cuts loosed by these pages,
slicing through the mask of your performance.
Don’t give me perfect language.
Don’t give me your well-shaped grief
or your clever metaphors.
I don’t want to see your control—
I want to see what happens when it breaks.
When your training fails you.
When you forget the right words,
and only the true ones remain.
I want the tremor in your voice
when you finally speak what you’ve buried.
Don’t write for comfort.
Don’t beg for sympathy.
Write because the wound refuses to close.
Write to pull yourself back from the edge.
Write because you must.
Show me the trembling hand,
the unscripted breath,
the thought you almost didn’t write.
Let the truth irritate you
like a razor rash—
like the fibreglass insulation that clings to my skin.
You can scrub and scrub,
but it lingers.
Like the honesty in the back of your mind.
I want you to read my words
and feel the edge of them.
Not so you’ll bleed alone—
but so you’ll know I’ve bled too.
Meet me there,
in the hollow where it hurts.
Take my hand—
not to be led, but to stand beside me.
We may not find a cure,
but we can find The Balance Within:
that quiet moment
where pain and peace finally look each other in the eye.
We’ll face it together—
the ache that binds us.
Let’s open ourselves,
so when they trace our words,
they’ll feel the faint scars of a thousand paper cuts—
see their own reflection—
and know they were never alone.
Posted Oct 17, 2025, 10:34 PM UTC