Beautiful ink

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my soul
is delicately written
in the most beautiful ink
not the kind
that stays neatly
between the lines
but the kind that bleeds
the kind that spills
when I am trying
to hold myself together
staining every page
with pieces of me
I never knew
how to say aloud
there are colors here
I have hidden for years
soft ones
aching ones
ones I was afraid
would be too much
if you ever saw them

but here they are
bleeding through the paper
one after another
every fear
every tenderness
every scar
I learned to call beautiful
just so I could live with it
I am not giving you
a perfect version of me
I am giving you
the pages I almost tore out
the words I swallowed
the feelings I buried
the places in me
that still tremble
when touched
this is my soul
messy
unfinished
soft in all the places
I pretend to be strong

and still
I am letting it bleed
across these pages
leaving nothing
behind the lines
nothing for me to hide
so that when you read me
you do not just see
the colors

you see
where they came from

21 thoughts on “Beautiful ink”

  2. What a gorgeous, raw piece of writing. Learning to call our scars beautiful just so we can live with them is a journey so many of us understand but rarely know how to voice. You have a magnificent way of putting words to the things we bury. Thank you for leaving nothing behind the lines and trusting us with your beautiful, unfinished colors.

    Reply

    • Thank you so much for seeing this piece so deeply. 🤍

      There’s something incredibly vulnerable about putting the unfinished parts of ourselves into words and allowing them to be witnessed. I’m still learning to see my scars as part of the story rather than something I need to hide, so your words mean more to me than I can really express.

      From one Queen to another, thank you, and I love you.

      Reply

  3. This is one of those poems that doesn’t mention vulnerability so much as enact it. The ink isn’t a quaint metaphor for “expressing yourself”—it is the cost of being seen. You aren’t offering a curated self; you’re offering the pages you almost destroyed, the colors you spent years hiding because you were afraid those colors would be “too much.” Those last lines—“so that when you read me / you do not just see / the colors / you see / where they came from”—is the whole point of intimacy. Not the pretty result, but the origin of the stain. Quiet, precise, and brave.
    You, the author has offered the sight…but it is now for the reader to actually see…and not just notice the blue “ink” weeks after it was made visible.
    Seen, indeed. That’s what makes the ink beautiful.

    Reply

    • Thank you for seeing this writing this way; and, perhaps more importantly, for seeing what was underneath it. That the vulnerability isn’t simply in what is revealed, but in allowing someone to see where it came from.

      I especially love what you said about the reader not just noticing the blue ink, but seeing it. Because as you know, blue is her favorite color. That distinction feels so important to me. The colors are only the visible part; the history, fear, hiding, and becoming are what give them meaning.

      Thank you for reading not just the pages, but the places they came from. That kind of seeing is its own form of intimacy.

      Reply

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