When I wake up, I can taste blood in my mouth.
See, sometimes my lip splits in my sleep, because even then I am biting back half of every
sentence I say.
Sometimes when I wake up my jaw is sore, because even while I sleep I am clenching my teeth because sometimes just half of a sentence is still too much.
My head is full of ghosts and my mouth is a graveyard and my teeth are tombstones for all the words I’ve killed.
All of the things I was told to kill were things that have needed saying at least a hundred and one times by now but I can’t remember what living words taste like.
All of the things I was told would suffocate me were all the things I needed to heal my lungs because this house is on fire and the smoke is getting to me.
All of the things I was told would blind me were all the things I had never seen so maybe that’s why I have a hard time telling the difference between new and bad.
All of the things I was told would overwhelm me were all the things I needed to breath so maybe that’s why I’m so scared of drowning.
All of the things I was told would sting me were all the things that would have gently pulled the stingers out of my palms but I still keep my hands in my pockets.
I have been told not to bite the hand that feeds me but my mouth is parched, my lungs are scorched, my sight is blurred, my chest is caving in for want of air and my palms are bleeding as much as my split lips because the hand is feeding me thorns and ashes and hollow ethics.
I fall asleep at night with the glares of the shadows peeling away my closed eyelids to force their way through my pupils and into my head.
I wake up in the morning with a skull-cracking headache because I couldn’t make the phantoms leave so I spent the night trying to break out of my own head.
I wake up in the middle of the night and brush my teeth a second time because nightmares and silence taste like fear and regret.

When I wake up, I don’t taste anything.
See, my lip hasn’t split in my sleep in a while, because I haven’t been biting back half of every sentence I say.
Sometimes, when I wake up I have drool on my pillow because my jaw was a little too relaxed while I slept.
My head is full of unconceived ideas and my mouth is a nursery and my teeth are birth certificates for all the words I’ve brought to life.
I still can’t describe what living words taste like but their taste is keeping me alive.
I still get a twinge of pain in my lungs now and then but I’m not in that house anymore.
I still can’t figure out the difference between new and bad but that’s only because I can’t recall what bad looks like.
I still get caught on a breath once in awhile but I don’t have to swim.
I still keep my hands in my pockets sometimes but I know that not everything is going to sting me.
I did bite the hand that fed me and now my mouth is green, my lungs are sound, my sight is clear, my breaths are deeper and my hands don’t even need bandages any more because I feed myself petals and raindrops and earnest altruism.
I fall asleep each night with the moonlight sneaking in through the window to tuck me in and wish me goodnight.
I wake up each morning with the sunlight slipping through the spaces between the blinds to lay warm fingertips on my cheek.
I did not have nightmares last night instead I had surreal and wondrous dreams and my eardrums were not collapsing under the crushing weight of silence thick enough to engulf any other sound instead I heard my own breathing and the spinning of the ceiling fan.
The dreams and sounds taste like euphoria and courage.