Dirty fangs

They said,

“Let someone else soothe the sting.”

So I did.

Offered up the wound like worship,

let hands trace pain like cartography

mapping me by the places that still flinched.

They called it healing.

I called it

distraction dressed as devotion.

They sucked the poison out

but their fangs

sank deeper.

Traded one ache for another,

a softer venom

that didn’t sting

until it settled in my bones.

And I let them.

Let them whisper comfort

until it sounded like scripture.

Let them kiss me like redemption

while digging graves in my softness.

Sometimes, the cure wears the same face

as the sickness.

Sometimes, the antidote

is just a prettier kind of poison.

I wasn’t looking for love

just a quiet place to bleed.

But even silence has teeth,

and I’ve learned

not every mouth that says “stay”

knows how.

Now I carry phantoms

who never meant to haunt me.

And names I never speak

still echo within my chest

when I try to call myself whole.