My therapist says that I’m scared of human connection.
I say, “Trauma has teeth, and I just don’t want to get bit… again.”
She asks me to think back, to peel the bandage off the wound and really look at it. I know what I’ll see. I was afraid when the knife glinted in the light, my mother’s knuckles white and eager. It was fear that kept me rigid and silent as his hungry hands reached for me in the dark.
I tell her the truth— I’ve spent far too much time with monsters to be scared of them anymore.
Ariel K. Moniz
Ariel K. Moniz (she/her) is a queer Black poetess and Hawaii local currently living abroad. She is a co-founder of The Hyacinth Review, and serves as a poetry reader for The Lumiere Review as well as the social media manager for Liminal Transit Review. She is the winner of the 2016 Droste Poetry Award and a Best of the Net nominee. Her writing has found homes with Blood Bath Literary Zine, Sledgehammer Literary Journal, Black Cat Magazine, and Sunday Mornings at the River Press, among others. She holds a B.A in English from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she once served as the editor-in-chief of Kanilehua Art & Literary Magazine. You can find her on her website at kissoftheseventhstar.home.blog, on Twitter @kissthe7thstar, on Instagram @kiss.of.the.seventh.star, or staring out to sea.
