Alligator Bites Never Heal
Yeah, I'm using the name of Doechii's album as a writing prompt.
It started with small wounds—pinpricks of pain that I thought I could brush off, the kind you ignore because life keeps moving. I told myself, This is normal. Everyone has their burdens. Life be lifin’. But each little wound was a bite, invisible teeth sinking deeper into my skin, and I didn’t notice the blood pooling until it was too late. Turns out, I’m a hemophiliac, metaphorically speaking.
The first alligator bit me when I was a child. Its teeth were sharp but small—a fleeting moment of rejection or disapproval that seemed trivial then. The ache faded fast, or so I thought. But it left something behind, a scar hidden deep beneath my confidence. Over the years, the bites multiplied. A careless comment from a stranger. A betrayal from a friend. The sudden and unexpected death of my child. My failures as a wife and mother. Each moment a bite, each bite a wound.
By the time I was an adult, the alligators swam freely in my mind, their jaws snapping with precision and tearing my flesh apart in bite-sized pieces with each death roll. They didn’t need to attack anymore; I carried the echoes of their bites everywhere I went. A critical word from family? It reopened the wounds. A failed endeavor? The teeth sank deeper.
I tried to heal. Therapy, self-help books, meditation, drugs—all of it was like putting a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. I would feel better for a while, but then a small trigger—a smell, a sound, a memory—would drag me under again. The pain wasn’t just in my mind; it lived in my body. My chest tightened, my hands shook, my stomach churned. What’s the point of faking it till you make it when I never felt made? When the prize is the fuckery of fakery award? It was as if my nervous system had become a swampy battlefield, and the alligators were winning.
I began to notice how the bites shaped me. I donned a veil and hid, afraid to be seen. What if they see what I see? Those bites made me cautious, fearful of letting anyone close. They whispered lies about my worth: You’re weak. You’re broken. You’re unworthy. You’ll never be enough. The alligators were the villains in the bullshit stories I told myself and I’d never be rescued. They were bold and reckless because they were certain heroes didn’t exist. And because the wounds were invisible to others, I felt isolated. Alone and abandoned on a tiny island in the Okefenokee Swamp with hungry alligators encircling me. Sometimes I’d purposefully lure them, begging them to make it quick. I was tired of looking at them look at me. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The worst part was the shame. I blamed myself for not healing faster, for not being “strong enough” to move on. I compared my pain to others and thought, They’ve been bitten too, and they’re still swimming. Why can’t I? Instead, I’m drowning in the water and on dry land. ATSS? (ain’t that some shit)
It wasn’t until recently that I realized something. These bites, these traumas—they weren’t just wounds. They were maps. Each scar told a story of where I had been, and what I had survived. And survival, I learned, was not a weakness.
Healing doesn’t mean pretending the alligators were never there. It means acknowledging their bites without letting them define me. It means learning to swim again, even with the scars.
The alligator bites will never fully heal. I know that now. But maybe they don’t have to. Maybe the point isn’t to erase the pain but to carry it with grace, to let it shape me without consuming me.
Because life isn’t about escaping the alligators—it’s about learning to live despite them. And some days, that feels like victory enough.