Aftertaste

I didn't scream - I smiled, I think, like something in mean learned not to blink when something sour turns to sweet and mould pretends it's safe to eat. I let it sit upon my tongue like something holy, soft, and young, like something pure - untouched, divine - like it was his and it was mine, but something slipped between the seams, a bitter thread inside the dream, a tasted that shouldn't have a name but coats my throat in heat and shame, I try to cough it, try to spit, but it clings on. It wants to sit behind my teeth, beneath my skin, like something taught to settle in, like something trained to make me stay, to soften truth, to look away, he says "before," like time can bless a body rinsed of ugliness, like years can bleach what once was done, like mould goes clean when left alone, but I can feel it in my chest, a wrongness dressed like something blessed, a sweetness split with something vile, a fracture hidden in the smile, and I am choking on the fact I gave myself and can't retract the way I trusted, bare and bright, the way I let him hold me right, as if my body didn't know what truths were buried long ago, now every memory feels misread, like something living in the dead, like every touch was slightly off, like silk that hides a quiet rot, I want to tear it from my throat, rip out the softness I once wrote, unmake the girl who didn't see how easily trust undoes me, how something gentle can persuade a softer self to be remade, not forced - slowly bent, until the line of choice is spend, I didn't scream - but maybe I should've, because now it lives in everything I love and everything I was and everything I gave, and I don't know if I'm still whole or just well-behaved.