I Wear His Face

I have changed my name.
I have reshaped my voice.
I have cut pieces of myself away, stripped my body of everything that could tie me to him.

Yet still—I wear his face.

I see it in the quiet spaces between thoughts.
I hear it in the hum of the city, the breath of the wind, the rasp of my own voice when I wake.
It waits for me in my reflection, patient, unyielding, rotting beneath my skin.

I have tried to tear it away.

I have stood before the mirror, nails digging into my cheeks, clawing at flesh that is not mine.
I have bruised my own bones in my rage, split my lips, swallowed the taste of iron like communion.
But the blood only stains. It does not cleanse.

I curse it.
I beg it.
I demand its surrender.

But it does not listen.

Because it knows the truth.

It does not need my permission to exist.
It does not care if I deny it, if I carve myself down to raw marrow just to escape its shape.

It lives in me.

It festers in the angles of my jaw, the weight in my eyes, the way my mouth twists when I’m too tired to fight.
It coils in my throat when I speak.
It moves my hands before I can stop them.

Strangers say, You look just like him.
Their words slither inside me like worms, burrowing deep, gnawing through the tissue of who I thought I was.
Family watches me too closely, waiting, waiting, waiting
For the moment the mask slips. For the moment I become him.

I am not him. I am not him. I AM NOT HIM.

I whisper it through gritted teeth.
I scream it into the hollow of my hands.
I weep it into the sink, watching spit and blood swirl together, spiraling down the drain like something I can wash away.

But blood is a stubborn thing.

It lingers beneath my skin, thick and knowing.
It drips from my reflection, pools at my feet.
It gurgles in my throat when I choke down my rage, burns like bile, like acid, like a curse I will never be rid of.

I can run. I can break myself apart. I can peel away my own flesh, flay myself raw, rebuild bone and sinew into something unrecognizable

And still, I will wear his face.

I cannot tear it off.
I cannot bleed it out.
I cannot escape what was poured into me before I ever had a choice.