Broken, Healing

Daylight arriving:
too much of a thing,

neither bad nor good,
that inserts its presence

without asking.
Dusk and dark:

blankets only, 
fixes for nothing.

Day or night
the air smells like fear, like

blue lights
in my rear view.

I am broken,
I’ve been told.

I’ve been told
I’m in the process

of healing. Terrifying words,
broken, healing; broken

for how I’ve been
and how I am seen;

healing for its reminder that
I have not only not

been repaired fully,
but that I may never be.

What I do daily, nightly,
is pretend the healing is working.

I sit in the scent of fear
and bathe myself.

I call it a treatment.
I treat myself to 

immersion in what you call
healing, which for me is

a rough massage
of broken parts

that is alleged to make me
better, but really 

just moves fractures
into hiding under my skin.

The hurt never changes
and I can’t escape the smell.

I am more broken than
healing. This is my life.

I live it and have lived it
but I will not pretend

to have liked 
much of it.