Yuki

Yuki,

put the daycare tote

under the vanity.

bury the rainbows.

bury Olivia’s card.

bury the soft things

before they stain.

~

robe on.

chin up.

paint the face.

wipe the unicorn away.

they are waiting.

~

Yuki,

snow girl.

oil saint.

invoice with pulse.

~

let the bulbs

bleach you gentle.

let the mirror

eat first.

spill some

to cry on after.

~

do not flinch.

do not explain.

do not ask

which woman is real.

just... do not ask.

~

baby wipes.

jasmine oil.

city rain.

three perfumes

for one nervous animal.

~

take the lie.

take the body.

take the small shame

by the throat

and call it logistics.

~

go downstairs.

smile clean.

Let It Flow.

.

---

Yuki works childcare by day, calm as a hostage negotiator among juice boxes, tantrums, and glitter crimes. By evening she crosses Melbourne in the rain to a discreet massage parlour, carrying the same tote, the same tired body, the same unpaid tenderness. She is not pretending to be someone else. Worse. She is learning which parts of herself to hide before they stain. Soft with children, polished for clients, she survives by teaching shame to clock in.

Part of Let It Flow, a gallery of women on the borderline of becoming and unbecoming: structured, chaotic, intimate casualties of modern discontinuity, where the self fractures politely and still has to pay rent.