I am my scars

They paint my body, and my heart

A story for the reader

If they can see it

 

The one on my wrist from petting a cat

Visiting a shelter, holding death

I went despite my allergies

I didn't mind that the scratch went deep

A swollen hand was a small price to pay

 

Tiny constellations across my left hand

I slipped and fell on ice

Too busy going Somewhere to bother with care

They serve as a reminder, not a lesson

I'm too clumsy, too focused on my destination

To bother if I get there in one piece

 

A scratch in my eyebrow

Hidden by hair

My beautiful kitten thought my head

Was covered in string

A delightful and interesting new toy

She almost took my eye out

I didn't mind

 

Then the invisible scars

The ones on my heart

The tissue that acts as walls to the unworthy

My trust issues, hiding that I am soft,

Breakable

 

One from middle school

All the friends who wanted help

Math, Science, English 

But were always unavailable to go to the movies

Except without me

 

Others, smaller and deeper, from loss

Priscilla, beauty even without hair

Such a fighter she was,

Only knocked out in the third round. 

Breast cancer never fought fair

 

A great grandmother I never got to know

Loved and treasured, O the stories they tell

Of a soft heart and a hard head

A card player, a mother, a friend

Lost before she even died

Taken by Alzheimer’s, the enemy within

 

My scars are beauty

My story in life

The hidden heartbreak building a wall

The trips and falls from fast moving feet

Trying to follow a mind to its dream

 

My scars define me, shape me, are me

A life laid out across my body

I wouldn’t have it any other way

They make me a living artwork,

Forever changing