This year, I learned that freedom tastes like salt and iron

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This year, I learned that freedom
tastes like salt and iron,

like gritted teeth and nails dug deep
into the earth looking for roots.
Like busted lips and knuckles bruised
on old testaments.

Like blood shed for children
I refuse to bear out of fear
of some stupid old clock ticking
in my grandmother’s kitchen.

I stand tall, watching the red trickle
from between my thighs as my feet rest
after a long run from all the things
that no longer serve me.

I lick my wounds on my own now.
I've learned that there’s a price
for outsourcing the licking,
and while some call this act
of delegation love,
I call it self-aversion.

I call it:
a woman too scared to face herself,
so she calls it love through a clenched jaw.

I call it:
a woman reluctant to look the world
in the eye, so she hides behind someone, anyone.

I call it:
sister stabbing sister in the back for scraps and a good girl title.

I call it:
forgiving but never forgetting.

And after I’m done naming and calling,
I sit back and watch mirrors shatter.
Their shards split my tongue open
and I start speaking words that are
older than me, words that sound like
hissing snakes and running streams,
and everything unholy for a woman
—everything forbidden.

A line starts to play on repeat
in my head and it says: I'm so grateful.
I'm so grateful my hunger is no longer
deep enough to make me beg for crumbs
at someone else’s table.

I know where to eat now,
I know what I taste like,
and it’s iron and salt.