The ink of my wrists (Marcella Boccia)

I write with the ink of my wrists,where the skin is thin,fragile as the moments I cannot hold—the words spill out,a river of liquid memorythat stains the pages,that drips in the quiet spacesbetween heartbeats.I trace the lines of a lifethat is not mine,but borrowedfrom a thousand selveswho speak through me,their voices woven into the scarsI wear like a second skin.A map of roads I never chosebut was led downwith my eyes closed.The ink on my wristsdoes not fade,even when I try to scrub it clean,even when I hidebehind layers of wordsthat disguise what’s underneath—the ache,the hunger for somethingI cannot name,the sorrow that sits heavyat the bottom of my throat.It is a mark of survival,these lines that run like rivers,spilling from the well of a soulthat is still learning how to livewith the ghoststhat will never leave.I write them out—the names of the ones I lost,the ones I never found—until the ink soaks throughand I am nothing but words,nothing but the storiesthat have saved me.The ink of my wristsis all I have to show for it,a language of woundsthat speaks louder than silence,a testimony of love and loss,of everything I wasand everything I couldn’t become.It is a languageI do not understand,but it speaks through me,written on the skinI will never be able to erase.