the soft parts they touched stayed soft // they left teeth marks in my memory // this is not survival. it’s malfunction.

[my unsanitized survival. wading into the murky waters like infestation, like rot, like becoming something else against my own will.]

“the soft parts they touched stayed soft” // “they left teeth marks in my memory”

i was a carcass before i knew what death smelled like.
not the real kind.
the rotting-from-the-inside kind.
like fruit that looks perfect until you split it open
and maggots blink back at you
like they were invited.

he touched me like a taxidermist.
not with lust (maybe a lil bit...),
with method.
like he was preserving something for his own private museum.
and i, stupid thing,
lay still,
in dark, in hot.
because when a wolf's smile slurs down on your skin,
you think it’s just a weird-looking dog.

i was not broken.
i was opened. 
with a crowbar.

not like a wound,
not like a flower.
not tender.
not gentle.
more like a cupboard
someone forgot to close properly / or left it ajar / or never meant to close at all.
and now, ripped open.
forced.
metal screaming against wood.
hinges never fixed.
after jamming the lock for years.
after taking what wasn’t theirs.
not because they needed what was inside.
but just to prove they could.

i didn’t bleed.
i didn’t cry.
i just started smelling like mildew.
growing mold in places no one could see.
decay with good posture.
blooming in private corners.
where love should've been housed.
where tenderness should’ve taken root.
where grit should’ve grown teeth.
where confidence should've been, but never unpacked its bags.

they did not ask.
i did not scream.
it was not violent.
it was just wrong.

and in that space; that crooked, silent space;
i learned that silence
isn’t golden.
it’s glue.
and it holds everything
you wish you could throw away.

i was a child.
i said “okay”
because i didn’t know
you could say anything else.

this isn’t a confession.
it’s an autopsy.
and i am dissecting the memory
before it decomposes again
and makes a nest inside my lungs.
lays eggs inside my lungs
worms its home behind my ribs

i still don’t tell the story.
not because i’m ashamed.
but because i am not obligated
to bleed for awareness.

don’t ask me for details.
you’d only look away.
or, deny it's happening anyway.
what he did wasn’t the worst part.
it’s what it unbuttoned inside me:
the rewiring, the glitching, the static
in how i say “i’m fine.”

but i will say this:

if you were soft,
and someone made you feel smaller for it—
you are still soft,
and softness is not weakness.
you were not complicit.
you were not confusing.
you were never the problem.

“this is not survival. it’s malfunction.”

they say survival is beautiful.
they lie.

don’t call it survival.
it’s a glitch.

survival is dragging your own corpse to the next day
and pretending it’s just your shadow.

me, walking.
me, smiling.
me, holding a tea like my hands don’t remember.

the child died.
no funeral.
just got folded up and packed into muscle memory.

survival is learning how to rot with rhythm and routine.
how to smile without showing your broken enamel.
how to laugh like you’re not still chewing on the bones
of the child you used to be.

i don’t grow.
i mutate.
under fluorescent lights.
quietly.
with a silence that hisses.
no one flinches.
bad wiring humming behind my eyes.
sometimes i twitch when someone says my name.

don’t hand me metaphors about blooming.
i didn’t bloom.
i festered.
i leaked.

- Oizys.