like scraping melted gum off a set of bleachers  
in the middle of a summer in Kansas
peeling back the layers of so many years of damage,
irreparable
in my mind i am a child
running circles around who i am today
laughing and poking fun
at all the wounds on my body
i thought they were pretty once
sometimes they seem like distant memories
sometimes they seem like all i can see
sometimes they are all i can think of

i am wounded
i am laughing
at
myself