The Cost

There is a strange grief

in realizing

your body has been

a room

others have entered

without ever asking

what it was like

to live there.

At first

I thought the skill

was learning how to perform.

But the real skill

was learning

how to divide things.

This part of me

is working.

This part of me

is watching.

And the part that might feel

too much

can wait somewhere else

until later.

People imagine survival

as something loud—

a fight,

a refusal.

But sometimes

it is quieter than that.

Sometimes

survival

is telling yourself

this means less

than it looks like.

It is a job.

It is temporary.

It is nothing personal.

Bodies are good

at following instructions.

Smile when expected.

Laugh at the right moment.

Touch like it matters.

And later

standing at a sink

under the quiet hum of a light

I would wash the makeup away

in slow circles,

watching the woman

they believed in

disappear

down the drain.

Meanwhile

the truth waits

patiently

in the quiet places

you promise yourself

you will return to

eventually.

People talk about selling a body

as if bodies are objects.

But bodies

are memory.

They keep a record

even when you pretend

there is nothing to write down.

I do not regret survival.

But survival

is not the same thing

as belonging to yourself.

That took longer.