Do you see this scar on my upper lip?
A dog bit me at the park when I was four.
I grabbed its tail, I didn’t know any better,
but neither did he.
I know, it looks bad, but don’t worry about me;
you should see what they did to him.
Do you see this scar on my left palm?
I grabbed a curling iron when I was ten.
My mother left it to simmer while she showered for church.
I snuck in to borrow her earrings and saw it on the vanity beside the sink,
surrounded by the static of clashing mist and synthetic heat.
For one hazy moment I could taste my beauty, my perfection—
she found me with my cheeks as pink as the skin burned raw.
I knew she would glare, but when the sacrament tray came around,
I poured the cool covenant cup over my palm
and prayed that God would find it in Himself to forgive me.
Do you see this one? On the tender skin just inside of my left elbow?
I have to twist my arm a bit to let you in on the secret.
I snuck away from home, one snowy midnight, but I didn’t run far;
I ran to a schoolyard, not unlike this one here.
My strides were numb and choppy.
I could breathe the frost seeping into the marrow of my bones,
but still I ran faster than I’ve ever run before,
flying faster faster fast—
until I collided with the bent foot of a chain-link fence
where the only supporting arms I found were made of twisted metal
and frost-gnawed rust.
I remember that midnight.
You bandaged me with your eyes cast to the sky
and told me that your scars were a constellation.
A tapestry of stories.
Tales of woe and triumph and wretched victory,
earned and etched in scarlet ichor,
proof of a life honorably attempted,
where the breeze whispers of good fortune
and scars heal with time.
Maybe our constellations are painted in different languages
or our blood drips in different colors,
where yours is dappled in starlight
and mine in fallen flesh?
The scars on my eyes are a little harder to see than the rest,
but if you force yourself to look at me,
you can trace their tormented pattern.
They cling to the fragile skin like a film of living brambles
and traces ringlets of thorns down my throat to my lungs,
spiraling in forks of barbed lightning.
The scars end just inside of my heart, but the wound hasn’t healed;
can you hear the frantic throbbing thing inside of me
that begs for just one more last chance?
