You can't craft honor
Character a clear birthmark
Darkness a defect

A mask looms over me and covers my face.
"Count backwards from 100."
My mouth feels like cotton--
My tongue weighs a ton.
I am falling backwards into an orange fuzz.
Pink and yellow squiggles bounce around me.
A blue one whispers to me,
"Give her more. She's waking up."

When I finally open my eyes,
I ask for it.
I see it in my mind's eye:
Brown, fuzzy
But I want to see the other side--
I imagine that it looks like the back of an eyelid.

I want to hold it and pet it and love it forever-- warm velvet and slime all in one piece of skin--
A most precious part of me that they have removed

It was unsightly
It might have caused cancer
I will never get it back

When I miss it, I touch my scar and am thankful for it.

They can't take me away completely.
Something still remains.

It was dark against a blanket
Of skin as white as snow
And I've hidden it in a way
So that no one, it, saw

But whenever I got naked
I look at it with fear
With despise and with helplessness
For I can't make it disappear

It had been there
For as long as I recall
But I never had enough courage
To break down that wall

I was never enough able
To show them that mark
'Cause I've seen people who did
And to their fire, it gave the spark

But to a selected few
This deformity, I've shown
Some would show me theirs too
And I'd say I'd never known

What if I wasn't born
With this godforsaken thing?
What if it's a scar that's due
To a young me's suffering?

So my despise melts
And in comes my sorrow
For because of this birthmark
I might not live to see tomorrow

we walked by the haunted house
and made out on the front porch

people say we fell in love at first sight that evening,
but i couldn’t see until the morning

and that beautiful birthmark that covered half of your body
i ran my fingers across it
like some kind of seamstress

and you threw my legs over your shoulders
and bit my fingers and i couldn’t stop looking at your birthmark,
it looked like a scar

and i asked you to drive me to walgreens
something about a plan,
what we were going to be

but we got lost and tangled
and my kitten bit our ankles in the kitchen
where i made you black coffee and i rubbed my eyes
too much, too much, i broke a blood vessel
honestly way too much

i was scared of the bruises on my thighs
and i thought  i wouldn’t see you again

“i’ll never see him again”

so i drove to walgreens
and the girl at the counter judged me,
and i bought a donut


you're some kind of cinderella boy
leaving a broken cigarette under my mattress

your birthmark left a stain on my eyelids and my hands
and i forgot to ask your name

i have
a birthmark
shaped like
a cloud
but then again
   everything
  is shaped
     like a
      cloud