I started smoking when I was fifteen.
I wanted to be a concept,
to be an artist,
to blacken my insides, chafe my organs raw,
pour cement in my lungs, for my soul
to be concrete. A pathway
to somewhere else.
I wanted to be beautiful,
but the other kind of beauty.
Not the moon or the ocean,
not the flowers or the trees,
but the worm
wriggling in mud.
I wanted beauty
like dirt.

I replaced food with nicotine.
I ate cigarettes for breakfast, drank ashtrays
filled with coffee, chewed on fire
and tobacco.
I wanted my heart to race faster
than my thoughts, to pound
louder than the voices in my head.
I wanted my coughs to rouse me
from my nightmares, so I inhaled
until my throat bled, until
my breath turned gray, until
my enamel decayed, until
I forgot air
was meant to be colorless.

And when my mouth became a desert,
I quenched myself with sweat.
And when my stomach devoured itself,
I fed my body with poison,
fingers, men, tongues, girls,
more fingers, pills, words.
I would have swallowed lava
if it meant burning
a little longer.

And when the flesh melted
from my bones, until
I was taut skin and sharp angles, until
I was crevices and xylophone ribs, until
I was sunlight shining
through a thigh gap
—forever open—
a portal between my legs,
a pathway for someone else,
they said
you look amazing,
what have you been doing?

Twenty-six,
I am closed.
They only ask
what have you been doing?

Maty Diawara (she/her) is a French-Ivorian writer and poet living in Cape Town, South Africa. Her work explores mental illness, embodiment, and complex trauma through Black womanhood. 

Instagram: @maty_dwr