CW: self-harm
Before I knew how tender
the colour blue could be,
I threw myself against asphalt,
put my head through walls
and stuck pins in my eyes.
Before I unlearned
how to clothe myself,
laid bare to the world,
I ripped skin on rusted nails,
pushed splinters into bleeding palms,
shattered ribs and screamed
hateful words into the night.
Before the unfolding of my self,
like the peeling back
of trembling fingers,
I knew nothing —
as tears kiss my face
at the openness of blue skies,
I wonder at the kindness
of undoing.
Perry Gasteiger (they/them) is a queer, non-binary poet. Their work focuses on the mundane darkness of our everyday world using juxtaposition between the real and the abstract, the beautiful and the deformed, the congruent and the disordered. Perry aims to see the easily unnoticeable in an evocative and empathetic way. Twitter: @sunshineloft