Vanilla Heart.

I have learned to eat my emotions raw, leave my wounds bare, pour salt, and let it sting; I have learned not to scratch, no matter how itchy it gets.

I was taught to never sip but gulp my emotions, to put together, sharpen, and hide my knives.

It’s always a “you should have” or “it would have”.

It’s always “in another life” or “in a parallel universe”.

They taught me to unfeel. Unwrite, only to unwrap the new me you find: stillness. stiffness. Force. And. Stubbornness.

I shushed me, zipped and sewed my lips.

Shackled the soft me and lost the keys to the locks.

I am now what they have tailored me to be

with a calloused, poisoned, steel-hard heart that was once vanilla.