Scars you gave to me last year are still burning

Are still visible and stained

Scars you gave to me last year are still spilling blood

Are still screaming for dear life

You can still see the once before lacerations across my stomach

Sinking deep into the flesh that I once use to hold as mine

Creating small hills of the next man-made structure

So many hills that I’m afraid to show another creature known to man

To the friends who heard, they say, “battle wounds”

But I call them, “nightmares”

To the parents that know, they say, “this is not you”

But I say, “how can this not be me for the scars are made by my flesh? A modification to my body.”

To the lovers that I have let in, they ask, “what happened?”

And stare in silence

I reply, “That is a past I don’t wish to tell”

You can still see the scars stitched on my heart

The ten stitches along the abrasion that keeps my heart pumping

1. For all those nights you told me you would stay, but left before I could say goodbye
2. For all those times you said you loved me when you made love to another woman. Each one different from the next.
3. For that one time you bought me a single white rose signifying that I was perfect and pure to you. A flower can only live so long without the light that makes it shine. Before it loses its petals to keep going.
4. For that time you said it looked like I gained weight not realizing that I had lost five pounds because of your insistent wishes for me to become thinner. You could see the deep ridges between my ribs and the swords of elbows that I carried everywhere.
5. For that time you drank the night we had our fifteenth fight. When we met, you called yourself a man that holds great respect for others and would never hit a woman. I guess that statement vanished the moment you handed your fist to my jaw and wiped me out clean. A bruise painted onto my skin that spelt out your name perfectly.
6. For the constant accusing of me cheating on you. I cheated on you with the diet you always shoved down my throat. I cheated on you with the tears I cried each night convincing myself I loved you. I cheated on you with the silence you brought home every night and the empty spaces between you and I as we slept in the same bed.
7. For the one night I told you I have had enough. You had gotten back from a date with gin. Oh, how you enjoyed the company of gin. I could smell it on your breath. You took the pocket knife from your back pocket and unleashed the cracken that was masked by your human form. My stomach becoming your canvas.
8. For the day I spent in the hospital watching you cry by my side. Again I told you I have had enough. Why I didn’t tell the police the truth? Is a question that baffles me as well as every person known to existence.
9. For the day I found out you got hit by a truck on Rosemary Avenue. The driver said you appeared out of nowhere. The police report stated you had a date with 5 bottles of gin. I couldn’t have cared less. You were finally gone.
10. For the moment I said I love you. I regret it every minute of every hour of every day of the year that has passed.

Just because you cease to exist doesn’t mean that people like you no longer exist

People like you roam the streets across the globe from East Asia to the west coast of California

About 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in

 the United States.

I told you I loved you and I poured my heart out to you and you did the same

I created a perfect fantasy of you and me against the world

I will not make that mistake again

I will not let my guard down to some nameless character

I will nourish these once upon a time valleys

The infrastructure that holds me together

My skin not gray, but instead flushed with a rosy pink color

Smooth like a baby’s bottom and full as the ocean can be

To the friends that heard, they say, “battle wounds”

I will say, “Yes, battle wounds from the war of the abused and the silenced. I will no longer be silent”

To the parents that know, they say, “this is not you”

I will say, “Yes, this is me. This is me flesh and bone. I will not become my scars. My scars are will

become me. They speak what words cannot. I will be the body to rise up to the occasion to be an idol to

all those that have been silenced.”

To the future lover and husband I will let in, he will ask, “What happened?”

And not stare.

Instead he will trace his fingers along my beautiful hills

And I will reply, “This is a past I do not wish to speak of, but…”

And I shall explain to him of the evil I have experienced in all its misery and pain

He will not stare at me in horror

He will not draw back in disgust

He will lightly press his lips upon my scars

Kissing each one with invitation

He will look into my eyes, cup my face into his gentle hands, and kiss me softly

He will call me a stunning creature

The scars you gave to me last year will stop burning

But will still be visible and stained

The scars you gave to me last year will stop spilling blood

And will stop screaming for dear life

They will only yearn for the sweetness that life has to offer

You were just a silly boy. A silly, silly boy

And this world does not have room for silly, silly, boys.