I want an easy life. I want to have thick skin. Confidence is collagen. But how do I have thick skin when my whole life it’s been punctured? Punctured to protect me. Punctured to resurrect me. Pictured to feel something. Punctured to not. Does going through hell mean you deserve to get to heaven? Would angels smile at the sight of my suffering?

I am never in the moment. I’m always planning. Planning for danger. Scanning sunburnt sidewalks for signs of rain. Always looking up and never forward. Eyes on the moon. Eyes on the sun. Those celestial sunken eyes dropping into the fleshy blue sky. I watch them fall. Waiting for them to hit me. Because if I don’t plan I worry. On my phone. I check and I check I don’t even know what I am checking.

My worry pulls you into a whirlpool of chaos. My mind becomes your wound. Your chains. Your blade. I drain you. Then I blame you. But guilt isn’t accountability. Change is. I am not the blood on my hands. I need to learn how to stop shedding red.

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Bella Melardi is a poet and writer. She attends OCADU. She writes about the political and personal.