<p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(Dim lighting. A body under tension. Speaks slowly. Looks at you, or maybe at herself.)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">It wasn’t light.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(smirks, but without joy)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Not all transformations shine.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Some…</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">smell like rust,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">like confinement,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">like skin peeling off in slow defiance.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(Touches her arm, as if something is growing beneath it.)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">I trembled.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Not from fear.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">I trembled the way things do</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">right before they stop being what they were.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">There were cracks.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Yes.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">But they weren’t wounds.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">They were... mouths.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Mouths opening on my body,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">saying what I never said.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">What no one wanted to hear.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(Walks, shoulders low, a weight.)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">I mutated.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">But not into a butterfly,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">not into something new and beautiful.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">I became something</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">that breathes through clenched teeth.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">That chews on its own shadow.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(Long pause. Looks straight ahead.)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">It wasn’t redemption.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">It was truth.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">And truth,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">when it arrives late,</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">doesn’t ask for permission.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">(Longer pause. She straightens up.)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">No one saw me change.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">But believe me…</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">I wear a different skin now.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">And it pulses.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">It pulses with rage.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">It pulses with memory.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">-----------------------------------|</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">Digital composition created from scanned photos and destroyed pixels.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 84, 98)">2025</span></p>