we start by cutting lilacs from the yard because they grow back wild and wanting
we cut recipes from magazines we will never cook
we cut our hair and change its shape
we cut people from our stories
we cut the parts where we were cruel
we cut the apology we almost sent at 3 am
we cut our losses
we learn to cut conversations short before they turn
we cut our eyes away from what we cannot fix
we cut corners on the truth until the truth is just a circle with no edges left to hold
we cut ties and threads and cords and all the names for things that bound us
we cut the fat and cut the chase and cut straight to the bone
we cut out sugar and cut out sadness and cut out anyone who makes us feel the ways we have decided not to feel
we cut them clean
we cauterize the wound with silence and salt and saying we are fine
some cut the crusts off sandwiches because the edges taste like endings
your neighbor cut the engine in the driveway and sat in the dark before going inside
every severance leaves a line
we do not see them in the mirror but they exist
pale thin permanent
we collect them the way trees collect their rings
we are walking records of our own pruning
and when you cut enough away you do not become lighter
you become swiss
you become holy
full of holes where something used to be
the people we cut out do not disappear
they are the gaps between our words
they are the thinness of our laughter
they are the reason we bleed so easy now from paper
from memory
from songs we have not heard in years
i have cut so much away i am nearly gone
what remains is mostly scar
and scars do not grow back
they do not heal again
they just sit there white and numb where feeling used to live
and when i am finally all cut out
when i am all blade and no fruit
when i have trimmed myself down to a version no one can hurt
I will realize too late that i am also a version no one can hold
to sharpen the edge is to thin the blade
-lyra moon (what is saved is not the same as what survives)
january 10, 2026