scars

I think about the way my body remembers traumas.

Accidental old wounds tattooed on my skin. Permanent personal maimings are nowhere to be seen. 

My body holds scars in a way I can’t comprehend. I enjoy them, these marks, mostly I do. They tell my story, my history.

So subtly. You’d have to look to really see. You’d have to ask to really know.

I like that quality anywhere. 

There’s the half inch cut on my left hand from opening the stiff cardboard box that carried my books, that day in May, when I moved into my own apartment.

There’s the tiny crescent moon on my right knee, from when I fell off my bike at our first home in Madison. A neighbor found me in the lot, I was crying, out of breath, and they brought me to my mom, who was napping in our unit. Mama took me straight to the bath and washed the blood away. I was seven.

Then there are the intentional disfigurements when I was in the midst of my angst, amongst growing pains. What I was doing, I did not completely know, or at the very least, understand what it really meant to do what I did.

I recall feeling a sort of sadness, self pity, that the world seemed huge, unfair, and unyielding. I remember watching in tv and movies, that this was something people do when they felt the way I did. I believed it normal, a routine part of navigating a changing figure, cloaked in mental misunderstandings.

It’s so long ago now, early high school perhaps. I don’t remember those memories well nor fondly. I don’t often dip and dive into that period of my life. I love the present I am in, I try to keep the past in the past. 

Lessons learned however, are something I keep in my heart’s pocket, something I bring with me each day.

I did not continue that unpleasant practice long. The scissors were sharp, my skin bled and burned, yet my forearms bear no signs, no strikes.

And then there’s my neck, emerging as one of the strongest bits of me. My strong girl. That though, is a story I’ll save for much later.

In time, I’ve experienced falls, scrapes, bruises, even encountered bites from the children I care for. None of purposeful doing, though on my skin, stay most of these injuries.

The jagged rough scratch on my right hand. 

The bite mark on my upper left arm, from which the bruise alone lingered at length, relishing it’s time to heal, painting my skin purple for two weeks, before almost, almost dissolving.

Go sit in the setting sun light, take a look and tell me what you see.

Even every blemish birthed on my face, choose to live on, deep and thickly dimpled. Regardless of the scrubs, the ointments, lotions, makeup, regardless of anything I do.

I enjoy most of the adornments dotted along my skin. These comedones though, I lovingly exclude, as they are in active remedy.

And so,

I don’t know how it is, I don’t understand, and I don’t think I will ever know why. But I believe it beautiful, persistently intriguing, that my body has chosen not to carry the scars from when I was not kind to myself. 

In a way I can pretend that I did not commit these acts towards my own blessed temple. Remain in a still and peaceful ignorance, that I was not hurtful and that I was not demeaning, towards the person I rest with every night. 

Of course that’s not how it truly plays out. My mind remembers these moments, even if my body does not.

And for that I’m thankful too. To forget any of these instances occurred, to forget that I once felt such hatred towards my own flesh, would be a terrible disservice.

Doing so would impair my insight. I’d become blind to how much work I put into growing and nourishing the love and respect I now hold for me. 

And so,

With these reflections and revelations,

I’ve come to embrace how my body keeps the score, and how my body somehow cheats it. 

Thanks for reading. Writing this out and sharing it to the ether, makes me feel distinct and protected, makes the world feel close and certain.