Proof

Their thumb stays there, tracing

the edge of the mark like a question.

You've never said it out loud before—

how old it is, that it's always been,

that you were born with something dark

pressed into your shoulder like a scar

you didn't choose but learned to hide.

You don't talk about the things

that make you look less whole.

The mark has been patient,

waiting under shirts, under lamplight,

under the kind of attention you could control.

But now their thumb knows too.

And you feel it—the shift—

the moment you stop being just the person

they want and become the person

they can see all the way through.

It's terrifying, the way they keep their hand there,

the way they don't look away or make it mean

something it doesn't. They just ask,

and wait for the answer, and in that waiting

you realize you've never had to explain yourself

to someone who was actually listening.