They say time heals all wounds
as though the clock faces
are doing us a favor.
As if we need
one more reason
to be indebted
to time’s greedy hands.

Time does not simply
apply the dressing
over careful, meticulous stitches,
lovingly pressing hope
against the puckered skin
in the form of a tender kiss.

Time rips the **** open
with desperate claws,
watching while we bleed out
and drown in the darkness
of our crystal-clear hindsight.

It scoops us up
to begrudgingly tear the flesh
from our still-beating hearts,
creating a crude skin graft
to cover the damage
and smother the cries
of the persistent lesion.

Time hardens the layers
that slowly gather on us,
clinging to us like dust
of all the years gone by,
forming sedimentary layers
that show our descent
away from the sun.

Time does not heal
any affliction at all.
It covers them up
with distractions and pangs
until they’re buried as deeply
as the people we once were.

The healing isn’t done-
maybe this is why
we humans
are so prone
to scarring.