Self-Harm | Margaret D. Stetz

scars encircling her wrist

form a bracelet or

a handcuff

dark shapes like ash

dropped randomly from a volcano

scattered over legs and arms

from matches snuffed

from cigarettes stubbed

into skin

she smolders in my classroom

so marked

out from others

silent

until words flare up

a burst of dragon’s breath…

she wants to be

a poet wants

what cannot yet be written

scribbles madly

shreds the paper

into fragments eats

them for her lunch

worships those who

exhaled song and inhaled

gas

is this a

Plath or Sexton

destined skyward to explode

in meteoric showers

or just another

poor St. Joan

who sets herself alight

each day before

expiring

on a pyre?

---

Margaret D. Stetz is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Delaware, as well as a widely published poet.