if they knew all they would become to were
some scars i regretted and did my best to forget
i wonder if i had known would i have changed my experiences
would i have tried to be colder stand straighter more upright
chin jutting out, daring the world to try one more time to put me
down, defiant and confident in my struggle that it was for me alone
but then the thought strikes me is that if even now all i gather are scars
instead of the cooling aloe that i need to heal past burns, some ice to cool
the heat under my skin from the betrayals and hurt i had felt once upon a time
a heat that still burns my insides today, the sharp tears of which left scars on
insides of my eyelids, a movie on repeat whenever i close my eyes to sleep or blink
in the middle of a good conversation with a new person standing in my casual self wishing
i could be somewhere else the moment i remember the slashes, the quiet shattering of my insides