Scars

May 5, 2014

If you could see inside my mind

You’d see a tangled web of scars.

Some new, still healing.

Others old, already claimed a corner of my mind.

Some scars are so old they are fading.

They are scars that represent the devastation

of being forced to leave my childhood sanctuary.

Scars from the emotional and physical burn her hand left the first time she hit me,

or the first time she called me, “bitch”.

Scars from every battle after – it was easy to acquire a legion of scars when it was

just me against the world.

Scars from his affair – I never knew the man I loved the most could cut so deeply

into my trust, our trust.

Scars from growing up too fast while he was jobless for seven years –

each “no, we can’t afford it right now,” and, “we wish we could do more for you,”

cutting deeper and deeper into my wounded mind.

Scars from the coming and going depression during my final year of high school –

everything was changing, everyone was packing to leave, everything was hurting.

But the new scars, those are the ones I love.

Those are the scars that measure the miles my mind has walked and how much I

learned along the way.

The deepest and freshest of scars came from the end.

The end of a four-year relationship with a boy I loved like I never knew I could.

For weeks the wound gushed a never-ending stream of memories,

of “I should have tried harder,” of pain,

of a throbbing heartbeat felt in every inch of my shrunken body.

But as weeks turned into months, everything ebbed,

and my wound bloomed into a lovely scar,

one made naked and exposed in the inky etches of a tree on my wrist.

This tree represents my most cherished lessons from this scar.

This scar taught me emotional independence,

that happiness is first found within myself.

This scar revealed to me the truly beautiful, strong, and passionate girl that was

beneath all the pain I was holding on to.

This scar keeps telling me life moves on, and so must I.

If you could see inside my mind in a moment of stillness,

These thoughts are what you would see.

A constant reflection of myself, how I’ve been made from these scars,

and how I’ll grow out of them, as their impressions will fade from my mind.

Because life moves on, and so must I.

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