The Last Time I Called It Love (After Everything)
by Âmî Jey
I loved the way the burned still reach for warmth—
because they remember what it was like to be held.
Still have the scar on the back of my wrist from
reaching into the oven as a child, 450 degrees seared
into song. It didn’t feel like love then either, but I told myself
my mother taught me how to give everything and call it devotion.
Who needed skin when I had sears.
But grief had teeth,
and my molars started taking shape in the dark.
Every time you told me I was too much
I tried to whisper myself invisible,
but my gums knew better,
knew my baby teeth were waiting to chew on vowels,
to taste what gets left in the dark.
My teeth became shovels to dig myself out,
but you kept throwing the dirt on your dark
and claimed it was your own burial.
I tried to cut my voice into ribbons,
tie them to your wrist to prove we could
be held. Together.
That love could mean growing,
but my teeth couldn’t stop pushing through,
every time you told me love meant never leaving you.
I remember the moment it broke.
How love stared at us like a stranger
while your shame raised its voice again.
I told myself then, babies teething need warmth too.
But we were no longer children, no longer needing
others to be the only comfort of hands
that promise to hold us whole.
So, I stopped reaching, let the oven door close.
Let the burn be what it was:
just heat that mistook my skin for sacrifice,
a map back to the first time I mistook pain
for proof of devotion.
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