It must have been Tuesday
When you looked over and
Saw me picking my scabs;
Saw sinewy soured skin
Drip simply off callused flesh,
Like the meat from
Over-cooked, worn out, and depressed bone,
Like the petals from a posy slowly dying
With the day;
Saw my fingers playing cat-and-mouse
With my nerve endings,
Wanting the hurt to cease
But not being brave enough to
End that painful part of my life and learn peace;
Saw pus ooze forth and bubble
Grotesquely
Like stale and pesky arguments in June
That we swatted at like so many mosquitoes
But for some reason kept hitting ourselves;
Saw me erratically ravaging the memory our last date together,
What would become our LAST date together;
Saw me give one last pinch and then
Wince with a sense of finality;
Saw me bite down the pain and
Accept that the battle was over and
I could be bitter no more;
Saw the rust-blood weave down my leg
Dipping and darting,
Pursued by poltergeist memories marring
It’s every move;
Saw the drips burst like wine-colored sunsets
Over drunken lovers that overstayed their welcome
In the bonds of passion,
Saw the crimson creep slowly, seeping outward
Through my sock like the red sea crashing back down upon
A man who couldn’t let go;
Saw tears well up and drown eyes
So as to blind them from the realizations
Cringing down my leg;
Saw me catch your stare,
And drop it just quickly enough
To be left stupid, stammering, staring embarrassingly
At my toes;
Saw me get up to go
And followed me outside
Where the world quieted
And you questioned my soul;
It must have been Tuesday
When you asked me why I would ever
Reopen old wounds,
But its two decades too late when I reply:
“How better to create scars to remember you by?”