Jumping Ship

by Caroline Butler

There’s no easy way to say this but all those words I swallowed are coming back up so watch out— I’m already spitting fire. This way, if I dissolve tomorrow I’ll leave you with the embers. Don’t forget the names you gave me— blood drop, dirty laundry, human switchblade— or the day that I folded in on myself and thought I would never return. Today I’m watching those years go by from the scene of my most recent shipwreck, where I almost feared the storm that tried to swallow me, but last summer I learned how to swim just enough to be the ruler of the ocean. Now I’m sharper than all of the water on the planet and more liquid than anyone who ever cursed me for talking louder than I was allowed, for pushing the limits until the limits pushed back, until I chewed up my truths and chained them behind my teeth, marched with them into my stomach for the maximum sentence allowed by my body until the storm stuck its fingers down my throat and released them one by one. Now they’re setting fires. Now they’re out for blood.