If you hold your head just right, tilted like that. You could see through my cracks. All the tiny slivers of light that are shining beneath my clothes. All the kinks in my armor.
Here, on my side, jut beneath the last rib, go on count them down, is for my first love. It’s the one I’ve had the longest, the one that started out painful but I grew to love. That dull ache that reminds me what neon is, even if it’s just throbbing beneath all this beige.
There, between my toes, those tiny marks? Those are for all the users and abusers. The skeleton-people with their blacked-out eyes. The people of the night that crawled into my bed uninvited. Leaving shreds of rotten skin behind. I don’t want them, but I carry them with me, too. I walk on their image every day.
Over here, I know, it’s big, don’t worry it doesn’t hurt anymore, much. This long arc on my chest? Feel that? It’s still warm. You can feel my heart beating beneath it. If you squint your eyes you can make out that pumping organ, you could probably reach it, even, if you wanted to. But, don’t.
I don’t think I’ve got it in me to patch up another tear.
That one is for him. And for me. Mostly for me. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t worry it a little. It’s habit now, pulling at the edges, just to see if it still hurts.
Why don’t I just leave it be?
I don’t know. You’re right. It doesn’t make much sense. But, it was love, and it scarred me. He gave me this wound and I can’t stop touching it, sinking my fingers in, because he gave it to me and I guess it’s all I have left.
I’m tired of this game, hand me my robe.
What?
What do you mean the ones on my back?
Oh, so there is. Long thin lines, you’re right.
No. I don’t know. I didn’t even know I had those.
Beautiful? Really? I guess, maybe. Like a torn landscape.
Or a broken city, all lit up, still struggling to shine.
Yeah. Maybe.
I like that.
C’mere.
