Too Many Cracks for the Light
Gemini III- Ten of Swords
I asked for the swordotomy.
I asked for silence.
I asked to be free.
They granted it.
The swords came out.
Clean. Gentle. Final.
Now I can’t tell what held me together.
---
The pain was real.
But it was structural.
The blades weren’t buried.
They were embedded.
They aligned with my spine.
Held me up.
Kept me functional.
Not healed. But moving.
I didn’t just survive around them.
I adapted.
I learned the weight.
I timed my breath with the tension.
---
When others got close, they met metal.
Some stepped around it.
Some walked straight in.
Some offered me their own steel.
Some tried to pull them out for me.
None of it helped.
The swords became part of the gearwork.
Resistance made the mechanism move.
Sharpness created rhythm.
Take them out—
and the gears slip.
The motion stutters.
---
I thought clarity would be peace.
But it’s just... suspension.
No blood. No sound.
Just absence.
And absence isn’t ease.
It’s confusion.
---
They say: *There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.*
But this—
this is not a crack.
This is a collapse of borders.
A spine turned scaffolding.
A body riddled with too many openings.
The swords were not metaphors.
They were seams. Hinges. Bearings.
And now I wonder—
When the last blade is removed,
when the last story is pulled from the bone,
will I still hold shape?
Or will I spill?
Will the light come in—
or will I go out?
I made things even while bleeding.
Stones, wires, symbols—
formed through pain.
Now that I’m unpierced,
my hands hesitate.
They hover.
Unsure.
And I wonder—
was it the wound
that remembered how to make beauty?