It starts at the core, the raw, unyielding surface. The white-hot internal heart that beats like a drum on a misty morning while the young scout watches the black crow ebb at the tree line. It’s the root-like veins that snake their way across your soul, sewing you together, a patchwork of skin and narcissistic tendencies. The capillaries that burst, slowly spreading crimson and plum ink that marks your flesh, saying “this is where your were careless”. Then we go up, climbing your vertebrae like a linked latter, stitched together with infinite tendons. This is where we pause, the gray matter showing exactly who you are, the ignorant child yearning for its mother. It’s a world of pink, dissolving into the ivory skull are the follicles. The excess of proteins, arranged in different wavelengths, the composition of a song. A violin that’s strings are pulled just a little too tight, and snaps on it’s maker. Linear, it stretches across your palm, the scarlet droplets that fall like little rubies, now forever a part of your wooden floor boards. The shell pink lips that utter sinful words, they echo up from the baskets of air you hold inside. Finally, we are clear of the vessel. The silvery mirror you peer into, a reflection of doubt, of self conscious endurement that we are so accustomed to. Each little flaw makes us feel as though we are unlovable, that we are not good enough. But the little imperfections are what make us, us. The eye that closes a little more than its twin, or crooked tooth, rugged sandstone among ocean worn glass. This is where we stop, and take everything in. A scar is a memory written into the flesh, a broken heart, a chance to be strong. The raw us is the most real us. The pool of clear water can be a lure though, and you may drown from egotistical habits.