The most obvious one, here, on her face:

From left eyebrow straight down to her jaw. It is straight. Knife.

She hates it. It marks her permanently.

Another tiny nick on her other eyebrow that came from childhood, a happier time.

Hers was a life of fighting and of falling, of skirmishes both friendly and deadly.

It only makes sense that she emerged with inscribed evidence.

Strange, though, how the old scars can be almost completely erased

By the ones collected over just a few months;

Then the ones that can be hidden by long sleeves:

The scraggly one on her left bicep made from the yanking pull of a hook

The series of straight burns that run perpendicular to the veins of her right forearm

The older ones on her left

More straight knife cuts and round burns peppering those malnourished arms

Thick, ropy ones on the underbellies of her wrists

Red ones circumferencing those wrists where manacles once did.

An aborted burn across her collarbone,

More that were fully carried out on her stomach

Ugly lines on her breasts where hands ripped once

Thin marks around her underarms where she was hauled by a rope

A carved piece of knotwork on her back right shoulder blade

It sticks out above the rest of the skin,

But partially obscured by brand-marks only made halfway

Because the hot metal skittered about before getting the job done,

Covering her shoulder with pieces of that unique symbol.

And of course, the lashes, hundreds of them, raised and thick all across her back

Made from dozens of different whips all wielded by the same hand.

So many, and then the leathery burns already there, and the existing lacerations.

Then the ones on her legs, that can be concealed with pants or a long skirt:

The dent in her thigh where he carved out a piece of flesh and made her eat it raw

Slices from his blades, scorches from his irons,

Puncture wounds from whatever he picked up,

Echoes of shadows of the bruises that covered her entire body.

Then the ones that she will never be able to hide:

Fingers crooked and misshapen from being broken over and over and over again

To force her to depend on him entirely and to prevent her escape,

A tiny straight line on her neck where he nearly killed her,

That aforementioned defining mark on her face,

And the accidental miniscule mark that most might miss, but that might just be

The most painful of them all.

It, too, is on her face

--her right cheekbone--

A mistake made in an attempt to save her life

That ended with the loss of a different life instead.

And finally, the unseen wounds,

The ones she will carry forever,

Unnoticed within.