When you first read the phrase “mind over matter,” you did not know
it would eventually resonate inside your chest like a hundred lightning bolts,
that the heartstrings pulled inside your head would eventually lead you
to place every good thought over every stroke of the razor.
You did not know that one day your flesh, your matter, would discover
that drawing a blade across it is not like bending a violin bow across strings
since no music is released from the red flowing from your wrists.
The only thing released is life.
One you could have lived, could have fallen in love with,
could have fallen head over heels for, and into and under,
until the stars sang from the sky and you no longer found yourself
stuck in the grey area between black and white, between bad days and good,
but found another color entirely, one of your own making, so brilliant
that not a single sunset could compete.
When you first read the phrase “mind over matter,”
you were unaware that one day, you would finally learn
how to start placing the power of your thoughts
over the pain you wanted to inflict on your own body.
Because when you choose to, when you really choose,
you can make yourself stop.
You can make yourself heal.
