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Tashea Young Dec 2017
My scars are NOT just scars sometimes they remind me of traumatic experiences.
Sometimes people would stare at them with a look so curious, that I myself, would become furious.
Because my scars felt like a punishment of a series of consecutive jail sentences.
They had me Feeling overwhelmed by weariness
So I put up a fence to hide what I believe was my hideousness.
Then my naked eyes realized the true lies, that behinds these marks are where the truth hides
My scars are NOT  just scars they are Evidence of a Wound, evidence that after pain healing must come soon.
My scars are a sign to show Life was adjusted just as a violin being tuned
My scars are not just scars they show that I have gone thru a Transformation.
My scars are not just scars The give me motivation in my times desperation.
My scars aren't just scars They signify even after my trails, I am Triumphed!
My scars are Marks Of my pass History to celebrate even I was hurt I have the victory! For Greater is He that is within me.
My scars are NOT just scars, they show that God was With me thru it all Truly!
My scars are not just scars they are Permanent sacred Marks Of Beauty.
Classy J Nov 2016
**** had me torn, **** had me scorned; I'm one of the few people who knows how it feels to have on a crown of thorns. Scars on my hands, scars on my feet, had so many plans but they all are now obsolete. Beaten outwardly and inwardly, never had the liberty to be anything more, just a lamb in a world full of carnivores. I am not a God; I am just a man that constantly gets beaten by a rod. The rod of guilt, the rod of shame, I'm starting to wilt, and I got no one left to blame. Faking smiles while dealing with depression, dead on the inside, and barren outside by all the oppression. Just a frame for the bigger picture, maybe instead of focusing on fame, I should've focused on the scriptures. No I don't want to hear your lecture, not here to be a fisher of men, my structure is fine enough dear sir.

Now in conjunction let’s us say amen, let’s us stop with the pretend, this is our time to amend our past mayhem. Bruises on my skin, bruises on my bones, trying not to tailspin, trying to control my hormones. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to figure this **** out, there is no need to doubt, that it is not fun being treated like an expired trout. Can't you see these scars? Oh yeah that's right you to busy looking at the stars! Scars opened up by unlocking the wrong doors, scars piling up from all the years of being treated like a *****. Scars won by wars, scars from running through the fire, scars from peer pressure, and scars from all the held back tears.

So many scars, feels like I’m not even human, yeah I swear I'm an alien from mars. 'Hey, people have it worse than you', well that may be true, it's all relative until it happens to you! Do you know what I've been through? Do you know what it's like being in an environment of lions, when you're a caribou? That's right you have no clue, the worst thing some of yawl ever faced has been the flu. Where-as there is me, who no one takes the time of day to hear or see. Where-as there is me, the one everyone tried to treat because they thought I was a disease. Where-as there is me, and only me, nothing more than one of those 'natives' or in this case 'Cree'. Can't you see my scars? Were you not listening to these bars? Do I have to drop down on all fours for some exposure? Cause when you need help I am one of the first ones to be your boulder.

They say pain won't last, they say that I can get over it in other ways other than constantly getting smashed. Some say that the forecast will clear, that there is nothing to truly fear except for fear. Some scars don't heal, some leave you with Ptsd and if something sets you off you can relive that pain wheel. I wear my scars like they a badge, not prepared to throw it in the trash. My scars make me who I am, it's just another thing in my program. My scars help me relate with others with the same scars, it helps me realize that I'm not the only one dealing with these scars.
Keerthi Kishor Mar 2018
We all bear scars in one way or other.
Some from loving someone too deeply and some others from losing someone or something that you cared too much for.
Some scars are intentional while some others exist for stupid silly reasons.
Some we are but some we are not so proud of.

I have scars all over my body.
All over my mind and all over my soul.

I have scars on my brain due to over thinking and over analyzing incidents that haven’t even happened yet.

I have scars on my eyes for shutting it more often, for being blind to things that should’ve been taken care of.

I have scars on my nose from all those endless snobs and sniffles from my horrifying past relationships.

I have scars on my mouth from speaking the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth.

I have scars on my neck from getting choked up on false love and fake proposals.

I have scars on my shoulders from lifting up responsibilities that I was accustomed to from an early age.

I have scars on my hands from holding onto things that weren’t supposed to be mine from the very start.

I have scars on my chest from my ice cold heart that has been stomped over and over multiple times.

I have scars on my lungs from the “occasional” stress buster cigarettes that I am addicted to every now and then.

I have scars on my stomach from one too many butterflies that flew when we first met.

I have scars on my legs from running, miles away from people and that place I used to call home.

I have scars on my skin from the many tattoos I got done that helps me reassure my self-worth.

I have scars on my soul from trying hard to pull myself together, calm me down and compose myself through the rampant storm that’s been raging in my life.

I have all these scars. All of them.
And they don’t scare me now even though they hurt like hell, at times.
They’ve become a part of me and looking back, they are just reminders of who I was, what I have been through my life and the person it has made me become.
They don’t scare me anymore because they define who I am now.

A survivor.
"So tell me what scars do you bear?"
Scars, like yours, mine, and ours
The ones that bled, now you can never discard

Scars, time to relive the past
It just happened to be,
Within in my grasp

Scars, a reminder of will
Remembering a loss,
A void to be filled

Scars, I’ll never forget
A map of the journey
No pain filled regrets

Scars, a feeling contrived
A time in my past  
Grateful; alive

Our creator, a leader of men
Scars are a reminder  
That symbolizes the dead

Scars, one last debate
How am I supposed to feel
When we can’t relate?
I don’t want to hear it
I don’t want to know
Don’t keep me waiting
With no dial tone

Scars, like yours, mine, and ours
The ones that bled, now you can never discard

It’s a badge of honor
I survived death!
A merit of completion
Having been put to the test
Got me in a fight for land
Where men now lay dead
Bloodied and red
These scars on my body
The voice in my head
Telling me you are the enemy
No longer my friend

Scars, like yours, mine, and ours
The ones that bled now you can never discard
Scars, yours, mine, and ours
Scars on your leg, on your chest, on your head

Scars, when you decided on ink
Instead of lead
Taking a bullet, they pronounced you as dead.
Scars
Kathryn Maurine Mar 2017
Laughing and laughing, your mind a never ending joke of insanity.
           Laughing for jokes, laughing for tragedies,
laughing simply because life is full of horrors.

Scars and laughter,
        Your life is described in two words, scars and laughter. Wanna know    how I got these scars? Laughter, insanity, a fathers drunken rampage, all            feasible reasons as to the origin of scars.

         Sinister twisted laughter of darkened rooms,
Laughing and laughing,
           laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors.
Why are you laughing? Horrors of the world, corrupted men elicit mirth.

Insanity,
           Scars,
      Scars and laughter,
Whose scars?        The scars of the insane man whose laughter haunts
the dreams of men, women, and children.
          Laughing and laughing, why does he have scars?
Scars, a permanent smile for a face too serious.

      Laughing and laughing, laughing for tragedies, laughing for horrors,
Tragedies strike, who’s to blame? The insane man, his mind a never-   ending joke of madness.
      Laughing for jokes, jokes of the corrupt, laughing for tragedies, lost  lives of the innocent, laughing for horrors, horrors he himself inflicts upon   men, women, and children.

Scars, permanent scars,
     Laughing for horrors, horrors he himself has encountered, a psychotic rampage,
             How did he get those scars? His permanent smile, Was it for   laughter? Not laughter, but a lack thereof, only to find the hilarity too late    as his face is marred by his permanent smile.  

       Laughing and laughing, scars and laughter, twisted mind of a psychotic jester,

scars from the question:

why…
            ..so…
                      .serious.
Dre Brax Jul 2014
The word scars has always had a negative connotation behind it. A common name for Mental or Emotional injury is referred to as mental scars or emotional scars. Medically speaking scars or scarring is a step in the natural process your body undergoes to heal. Even though the healing is happening when a scar appears it tends to leave behind what some people see as an unattractive mark or area. Emotional scars and mental scars follow the same rules; a broken heart, the death of a friend or family member. All of these things can give us scars of some form. Having many scars myself I can relate with the desire to cover up or be rid of the unattractive areas on my body or in my life. It can become increasingly frustrating when those scars don't fade over time, or take longer to vanish then we hoped for. However this doesn't have to be a bad thing as quoted by a musical group AA-" How Stubborn are the scars when they won't fade away, or just a gentle reminder that now are better days".

I've had my fair share of "scars" whether emotional, mental, or physical. Each one has a different story, each one is riddled with wouldas, shouldas or I wish; but like the choices I've made to obtain them they are permanent. A Great example of scars as a story is the process of tattooing. Tattooing is the process to scar the skin by injecting ink into the second layer of skin causing it to be stained in the patterned it was scarred. People are in most cases proud of their tattoos, yet try to hide the natural tattoos of life. The body is a blank canvas when you’re born. Through trial and error we have been painted with life experience. Where I’m from scars are worn like the patches on a jacket. “I've been stabbed here or I've been shot there" is a badge of honor. Maimed knuckles were on the hands that lead us to adulthood. We grew up believing that our scars were how we were defined. If my face wasn't torn or my legs weren't spotted from the bruises then I’ll never fit in. Although it’s looking beyond the superficial, I was convinced we still were missing something. We were missing the beauty of those distorted knuckles, the grace in that scraped up knee. We never stopped to realize that we were actually bonding over our flawed skin instead of boasting about, "You should see the other guy".

We shouldn't hide behind the outcome of something that happened but instead smile that we learned from it. It took me a long time to realize just how special each blemish I carry truly was to me. When I look at my shin I don't see I fell and it was painful; I see my wife and I playing soccer and she juked right pass me scoring the winning goal. Something my grandmother always said to me, “You’re only as interesting as the scars you can smile at". For me that sums up things beautifully. Bad things happen to everyday people and even when that scar doesn't fade just remember that now are better days. I can successfully say I’m smiling because now these are truly better days.
this was a speech i wrote
Tatiana Mar 2019
Scars
They are the wounds that will always be attached to us
Some of us have scars on our hearts
Where we loved someone, only to find out they didn't feel the same
Scars from where the heart was broken, but never fully healed

Scars on our brains from bad memories
From things we remember, but so desperately wish we could forget

Scars on our back from where people have stabbed us too many times
From where you let someone into your life, held them close, only to find out they were using, and had no intention to stay

Scars on your shoulders from when you were forced to choose
From when two people you loved got in a fight, and threw you in the middle of it all
From they pulled on your arms, forcing you to pick one or the other
Then they desert you for following your heart and trusting your instincts
Either way, in the end, they both left
That was always going to be the end result

Scars from your closest friends when they said "All is forgotten and in the past", yet they never truly forget
Somehow, whatever happened, will always be relevant

Then there are the scars that life gives you
All the bad experiences that you try so hard to bury, yet are still so close to the surface
Constantly reminding you that you are never enough
Even though you try so hard to convince yourself otherwise
You are always trying to convince yourself that you ARE enough

Then there are the scars that you have given yourself
The ones you so desperately try to hide
The ones you don't want anyone to see because you're so scared of what they'll say
The scars you hide because you want to do this on your own
You want to show people that you are stronger than they think you are...even though it doesn't feel like it
The scars that are on your wrists from when you wanted everything to end...and still do

Everyone of us has scars
Sometimes it just takes a while for people to notice them

But scars aren't all bad
They are proof

Proof that you struggled
Proof that you wanted to end everything the only way that you knew how
Proof that you've fought countless battles
Proof that you are, and always will be, victorious
Proof that you are broken, and that the broken live on
Proof that you've survived
Proof that you're still fighting for everything to get better...even when you think it won't
Proof that you won't give up or give in
Proof that no matter what happens, you will fight harder than you ever have before

And when the war is won, you will be able to say, "I am stronger than I have ever been, and NO ONE will ever tear me down"

That's what a scar is

All of us have them
We just need people to look deeper than the surface to find them, and help us heal
Sam Conrad Nov 2013
That sweet girl --

She who looks down on her scars,
That girl whose name I'm prohibited to utter.

She looks down at her scars and she aches
And she aches from crying until 3 in the morning
When she felt accustomed to the dark,
When the dark was the only thing she could feel,
When her parents didn't love her,
When that boy broke her heart.

Sometimes,

She looks down at her scars and she cries
And she cries because she still sees them
She still sees them as the trails of blood at 3 in the morning
When she shook with her crooked smile,
Until she moaned “Oh my God”
And went to clean them up.

Sometimes,

She looks down at her scars and she's numb
And she's numb just like she was
Like she was in the moments which precursed them
When she stopped to stare,
At nothing in the dark
And proceeded to cause new feelings.

Every day,

She wakes up to a body she's not happy with
And she looks at herself in the mirror
Like what she sees is only horror and it's not just the scars
It's the mole on her skin, the stretch marks, maybe that freckle on her neck --
And then her scars
And she takes shelter in her clothing.

Once in a while,

She has a bad day to which she wears her favorite shirt
And she reserves it and wears it because it tells the truth
It tells a truth she needs to hear but she doesn't believe in
It's everything she needed to know, when she was alone at 3 in the morning
And she wears it
It keeps herself sane.

I am that boy,

That sweet boy --

He looks down at his scars and he aches
And he aches from crying until 3 in the morning
When he felt accustomed to the dark,
When the dark was the only thing he could feel,
When his parents didn't love him,
When that girl broke his heart.

But you see,
His scars are different --

He looks down at his scars and he cries
And he cries because he still sees them
He still sees them as the memories, both good and bad, burned forever in his mind
Then he shakes with his crooked smile,
Until he moans “Oh my God”
And he eventually finds his “happy place”.

Sometimes,

He looks down at his scars and he's numb
And he's numb just like she was
Like she was in the moments which precursed them
When they both stopped to stare,
At nothing in the dark
And proceeded to cause new feelings.

But the truth is,

It never should have been this way
Their scars are only battle scars
Battles in which they won, battles in which they lived through --
But when they both stopped to stare,
At nothing in the dark
They proceeded to cause new feelings.
Tamera Perkins Dec 2020
My scars run deep
My scars are long
If my scars can tell you my story, they would tell you how hard it was for me to stop,
How hard it was to open up about them
How hard it was to love myself with my scars
How absolutely hard it was for me to create my scars
Don’t be alarm by my scars
Because their mine
Don’t tell me how to feel about my scars
Because there mine
My scares aren’t here for you to judge them
My scars aren’t here for you to stare at them
My scars are not here for your approval
Because My scars are MY SCARS
They are there to remind me how strong I am for not letting my depression win
They are there to remind me that, these ****** days that feel like everyday don’t always last
They are there to remind me that I am me and I need to love me no matter how many scars I may have.
Shelly Woods Oct 2014
My scars remind me of many things…
Some I want to remember and others I want to forget.
I am pure to the truth but I swell in regret.
Shame, pain, triumph, strength… scars represent.

There are no badges to wear;
I have no pride to hide.
I am not a product of the stories;
I refuse to be a prisoner of my descents.

The past is often forgotten...
Memories distort beyond recognition.
Scars will fade, darken, stretch and shrink.
But the deep ones stay; I still can’t forget.

Emotions dissipate... or so I thought.
But now I believe they simply hide
beneath layers of damaged skin...
keeping those scars painfully alive.

It isn’t protection; it isn’t healing.
No badge I’ll wear; no pride I’ll find.
Yes, these scars are mine…
But I am not my scars! And my scars are not yours.

To some, I am marked for life;
I cannot control their stereotypes.
I **** them and their forced opinions!
They thrive on my scars; they try to create new wounds.

Sometimes, I let you see my scars… but I am far from naïve.
I know I am giving you a temptation and a tool.
Don’t try to own me… you are a fool to think you know me.
The why, when, and how is my personal mystery.

I won’t let you look beyond the fragments;
Deep below the layered scars hides my truth.
I will not allow you entry; I am still afraid.
Self-inflicted wounds are far more acceptable.

I do not wish for more scars…
to add to my repertoire.
I do not wish for more adversaries…
to shove me back into the ground.

My past is mine and mine alone; it remains a part of me.
But despite the spite I feel…  
My past is not my present; my past is not my future.
And it certainly is NOT any of your business.
bluevelvet May 2017
I have scars.
I have scars you can see
but mostly,
I have scars past the surface of me.
I have scars from injuries,
I have scars from the words
I used to believe.
I have scars long and wide,
I have scars that scream out
'why?'
There's even a couple of scars
from the boy who'd pass by
in green cars.
I have scars from my first love,
and I will have scars from my last.
All my scars are from my past,
which is why you didn't even
have to look twice
to have known
that.
Star BG Mar 2019
SCARS 1
Every scar tells story to open a heart.
Just like words scribed have their own tale
to open an eye.

SCARS 2
Scars are a right of passage
for a child becoming an adult.

SCARS 3
a scar may open
the longer one lives
so guard it carefully.

SCARS 4
Scars, one can’t die without them.

SCARS 5
When two people have
intimate relationship
they share scars.

SCARS 6
are something from hurts
both physical and emotional.

SCARS 7
carry good outcome sometimes
when heart is open.

SCARS
C Be-careful they
A attach to body
R reminding one mentally
S and physically how they ****
Gerry James inspired this. He got me thinking about what a scar is therefore this write was born.   Thanks
Deborah Ehi Sep 2022
My scars
They weren’t  planned
Just like life’s scars
They hurt sometimes
I caused them
That’s why they are my scars
I don’t wear them with pride
But they are mine
Caused by me
Made by me
No one else
This scars weren’t anyone’s to blame
These are my scars
My pain actualized
My tear monumented
While the world will scar my heart
Without my choice
These scars, my scars
With every line
With every bump and curve
Are my scars
You may not see the rationale
I don’t even know the rationale
But I know the scars
I see the scars
What caused the scars
They are and nothing else but
My scars
Molly Mar 2015
Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted. I wanted to show you my scars because I feel like a fraud and I wanted to show you my scars so you would know how pathetic I really am but you don't understand, my scars are not battle wounds, they are not badges I've earned, I do not wear them proudly, my scars are representative of all the times I was too weak to fight those battles, my scars are surrenders and do not call me brave if I didn't even bother fighting. I wanted to show you my scars so you would stop telling me how strong I am because I am not strong, I am weak and I am still hiding from you because you think these scars are things I have overcome but these scars are the very things that haunt me and who are you to know what I am going through simply because I have told you? I am falling apart and these scars are reopening, I am falling apart at the seams and you are calling me a hero but heroes do not hate themselves like this. Here I am baring my scars and there are people calling me brave and this is never what I wanted.
Wrote this in November
Oh, You are a lovely poison
Oh, how You lay scars upon My soul
Your the one who hurts Me most of all
but Oh, how I'm the one who loves You most
Oh, How I fell for You
I fell for You like a child
You were the center of My world
the center of My soul
Oh, painful scars
scars upon My soul
Oh, I the one who loves You  most of all
and You put scars upon My soul
My heart burned like a fire
from the love in My soul
Oh, I loved You with a holy passion
that love in My soul
But Oh, You gave not a care
and put scars upon My soul
Oh, the wounds cut so deep
and put scars upon My soul
Oh, painful scars
scars upon My soul
Oh, I  the one who loves You most of all
and You put scars upon My soul
Oh, I told You I loved You
Oh, the scars upon My soul
I loved You
and You put scars upon My soul
Emma Sawyer Sep 2012
This is for you.

My body is scarred.
It has been for years now.
They are still as fresh as the day they formed.
Each one showing.
How to survive a little longer in the world.

They’re worn daily, just to show you’re alive
Every time you look down.
The scars, those battle scars
Flare up, like diamonds in the light
Showing all dimensions of perfection.
Fresh on the skin.

The human being without scars is a heart without a beat.
It’s our statement piece.
Defining us into being the warrior we must become.
Yet, we wallow in self pity, craving attention.
To heal the wounds.

Our scars stand by us when all else fails.
Showing the darkness behind each soul.
Giving light to a person we thought we knew.
They're all over my face.
Screaming the words; nightmare.
Pleading for pride.

Each sting, like the wasp's fear.
They hurt to remind you they haven't gone.
Never will they settle down beside your soul.
In peace.
Battle scars, those battle scars.
Bleed out, shirek out, wail out for acceptance.
Which is denied by our lives.

Make a soldier out of me, wear my battle scars with courage.
Let them taunt my name in disgust.
They can shine whenever they want too.
But it won't stop me.
Let them be my soul companion for life.
This life is now mine.
She holds for dear life to the ends of the sleeves in her hands,
Covering up lies that she wrote with a razor sharp pen,
And the sting of the blade is no match for the pain
Of the loneliness she's going through,
But we've all been there too.

Praise God we don't have to hide scars
They just strengthen our wounds, and they soften our hearts.
They remind us of where we have been, but not who we are
So praise God, praise God we don't have to hide scars

You can still see the mark on his hand where there once was a ring
He watched decades of history dissolve when she wanted to leave
And the hole that it left there inside of his chest
Is a canyon a thousand miles deep
We all know how that feels.

So praise God we don't have to hide scars
They just strengthen our wounds, and they soften our hearts.
They remind us of where we have been, but not who we are
So praise God, praise God we don't have to hide scars

There once was a King who so burdened with grief
Walked into death so that we could find peace
He rose up with scars on his hands and his feet
By them we are healed, by them we are healed.

So praise God we don't have to hide scars
Yeah we know His are covering ours

Praise God we don't have to hide scars
They just strengthen our wounds and they soften our hearts
They remind us of where we have been, but not who we are
So praise God, praise God
Oh His are covering ours
So Praise God we don't have to hide scars.
A great song,
Mila Berlioz Sep 2015
I have scars
I have scars on my soul
I have scars
I have scars on my arms
I have scars
I have scars all over my body
I have scars, that's why I am how I am
So please, accept me.
Accept me, embrace me, love me.
Because that's what I need,
I don't need rejection.
You'll just make more scars.
Ky Blackstar Jul 2014
I'm covered in scars
Scars from the blade
Scars from climbing
Scars from reaching the top of the bridge
Scars from falling
But I am still here...and so are my scars
Haylin Mar 2018
When we are mad

We have scars

When we are depressed

We have scars

When we are sad

We have scars

Get my point?

No matter how we feel

We will have scars

Maybe if we stop hiding

We might heal faster

Lets show the world our scars

And show how beautiful we are

Scars shouldn't define us

They improve us

It shows how we are different

Revealing may not be a bad thing

If we reveal our scars

They might understand

The pain

The fight

The feeling

Lets show the world our beautiful scars
Szabo Agnes Nov 2018
Like an insect is drawn to the light,
That's how I'm drawn to your scars.
I see them, I feel them, I think I can fix them
With warm hugs, with kind words, with being there,
With being me.
But after some time, no matter how much I want it
It's not enough.
You'll be there, crying in my lap, asking, begging
For me to make it go away,
To take away your pain, to help you,
To tell you what to do, how to go forward.
And that's when we'll both realise...
I can't do ****.
All I am is a pretty smile and a hug.
I'll feel your pain and it will hurt me more
Because I couldn't do anything
Because I don't know anything.

I'm an empty shell with the dream of who I could be.
All those dreams, since when I was little:
Thinking that I can make a change,
That I can make a difference.
Thinking that I actually matter...
But after all these years wasted,
Focused on how others think I should be
It feels like it's too late now,
Like I am hardwired a certain way.

I fell your pain, because it's mine also.
It's simply who we are.
Our scars, the pain of our wounds
Is what shaped us, created us.
Do you still remember your innocent days?
I still remember mine.
Imagining to find love at first sight,
Being happy, getting married,
And living happy for the rest of my life.
I would be an honest and good person,
A loving wife, a kind mother.
Yes, I had those dreams
But then, well, life happened.

So, as my scars started piling up
The more I could see them in others
And I just wanted to make it go away,
I wanted to help them.
Maybe in a twisted way, deep down
I even thought that maybe, just maybe
This will make mine fade too.
Because my scars, they felt like
Having a mark on my forehead.
No, not the Harry Potter like,
"I defeated evil, I'm special" kind of mark.
The "something is wrong with her"
Kind of mark.
I tried to hide it, oh I tried so hard
But I only made it more visible.
If only I knew that nobody cared
To look for it anyway.

With every day that passed,
It felt like it was spreading
So I tried to scratch it away.
Some days only to fell something
Because everything else felt numb.
Some days it was an unconscious act
Just trying to claw those marks off my skin.
But they never disappeared,
Not even when there was no pain just
Blood under my fingernails.
And after my dad hung himself
I wished I could scratch my way to my brain.
I realised that's where all is coming from.
It was the same for him.

He was a good man, he loved me, I know that.
I know that he loved me so much
And it makes me unable to comprehend
The mountains of pain he had to feel
To leave me here.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about him
And his pain.
His scars.
I could see them,
I could see the invisible marks on his skin,
I knew that there were monsters lurking,
reaching for him.
But i couldn't do anything.
I didn't do anything.
This is my biggest scar.

And I tried to ignore it, I tried to hide it
But nothing worked.
Now I know I shouldn't have tried to hide them.
I should never hide them.
I'll wear my scars and invisible marks
On my skin, anyone can find them
If they care to look.
My scars give me something
In return for me enduring the pain.
It's like the oddest symbiosis.
They teach me, they guide me.
They formed me.
This is me.
Me and my scars.
Erin Nicole Nov 2016
She just wants to be beautiful
She goes unnoticed, she knows no limits,
She craves attention, she praises an image,
She prays to be sculpted by the sculptor
Oh she don't see the light that's shining
Deeper than the eyes can find it
Maybe we have made her blind
So she tries to cover up her pain, and cut her woes away
'Cause covergirls don't cry after their face is made

But there's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

She has dreams to be an envy, so she's starving
You know, "Covergirls eat nothing."
She says, "Beauty is pain and there's beauty in everything."
"What's a little bit of hunger?"
"I could go a little while longer," she fades away
She don't see her perfect, she don't understand she's worth it
Or that beauty goes deeper than the surface
Ah oh, ah ah oh,
So to all the girls that's hurting
Let me be your mirror, help you see a little bit clearer
The light that shines within

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful

No better you than the you that you are
(no better you than the you that you are)
No better life than the life we're living
(no better life than the life we're living)
No better time for your shine, you're a star
(no better time for your shine, you're a star)
Oh, you're beautiful, oh, you're beautiful

There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
And you don't have to change a thing
The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we're stars and we're beautiful
This is truly my song rn. Scars To Your Beautiful by Alessia Cara
Robin Wright May 2019
You scars make you more beautiful
they’re part of who you are
they show the battles you have fought
and still, you’ve come this far
Your scars make you much stronger
than you ever thought you were
they show the pain, that you’ve been through
and how much you can endure
Your scars make you resilient
despite what others may say
they show that you’ll keep fighting
despite the fears, that you have faced
Your scars make you more honest
the truth has nowhere to hide
they show your heart upon your sleeve
so wear your scars with pride
Your scars make you a testament
to the wars that you have won
and despite how many times you fall
they show the world, that you’re not done
Your scars make you a warrior
they show that you’re courageous
they show a desire, to keep on punching
and a will, that is contagious
Your scars make you more beautiful
despite what you think the world sees
you never have to run and hide
your scars are beautiful to me.
Johnnie Rae Apr 2012
For all of the truly happy people,
Take a short walk in my shoes,
To hear some of the thoughts,
That run through my mind,
Would break you down,
Instantly,
You for once in your life,
Would experience,
True hurt,
Then maybe you'll understand,
You just might start to understand,
Why I wear these scars,
Maybe you'll finally understand,
Why I feel like nothing,
These scars,
You say I'm crying for attention,
Well *****,
Then why do I try so **** hard,
To hide these ******* scars
These scars,
These are a sign I fight,
Myself and everyone else,
Scars are emotional,
And scars are physical,
But most of all,
These scars are an adornment,
For life.
About the past, and me regreting every moment of it in the future, all while still knowing, its done nothing but make me stronger.
guy scutellaro Oct 2019
The rain ****** through a darkening sky.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles. Softly, he whispers, " Man, you're the biggest, whitest, what hell are you anyway?"

The pup sits up and Jack Delleto caresses her neck, but much to the mutt's chagrin the man stands up and walks away.

Jack has his hand on the door about to go into the bar. The pup issues an interrogatory, "Woof?"

The rain turns to snow.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles, "My grandma used to say that when it snows the angels are sweeping heaven. I'll be back for you, Snowflake."

Jack shivers. His smile fading, the night jumps back into his eyes.

Snowflake chuffs once, twice.

The man is gone.



The room would have been a cold, dark place except the bodies who sit on the barstools or stand on the ***** linoleum floor produce heat. The cigarette smoke burns his eyes. Jack Delleto looks down the length of the bar to the boarded shut fire place and although the faces are shadows, he knows them all.

The old man who always sits at the second barstool from the dart board is sitting at the second bar stool. His fist clenched tightly around the beer mug, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror.

The aging barmaid, who often weeps from her apartment window on a hot summer night or a cold winter evening, is coming on to a man half her age. She is going to slip her arm around his bicep at any moment.

"Yeah," Jack smiles, "there she goes."

Jack Delleto knows where the regulars sit night after night clutching the bar with desperation, the wood rail is worn smooth.

In the mirror that runs the length of the bar Jack Delleto sees himself with clarity. Brown hair and brown eyes. Just an ordinary 29 year old man.

"Old Fred is right," he thinks to himself, "If you stare at shadows long enough, they stare back." Jack smiles and the red head returns his smile crossing her long legs that protrude beneath a too short skirt.

The bartender recognizes the man smiling at the redhead.

"Well,  Jack Delleto, Dell, I heard you were dead. " The six foot, two hundred pound bartender tells him as Dell is walking over to the bar.

"Who told you that?"

"Crazy George, while he was swinging from the wagon wheel lamp." Bob O'Malley says as he points to the wagon wheel lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"George, I heard, HE was dead."

The bartender reaches over the bar resting the palms of his big hands on the edge of the bar and flashes a smile of white, uneven teeth. Bob extends his hand. "Where the hell have you been?"

They shake hands.

Dell looks up at the Irishman. "I ve been at Harry's Bar in Venice drinking ****** Marys with Elvis and Ernest."

Bob O'Malley grins, puts two shot glasses on the bar, and reaches under the bar to grab a bottle of bourbon. After filling the glasses with Wild Turkey, he hands one glass to Dell. They touch glasses and throw down the shots.

"Gobble, gobble," O Malley smiles.


The front door of the bar swings open and a cold wind drifts through the bar. Paul Keater takes off his Giants baseball cap and with the back of his hand wipes the snow off of his face.

"Keater," Bob O'Malley calls to the Blackman standing in the doorway.

Keater freezes, his eyes moving side to side in short, quick movements. He points a long slim finger at O'Malley, "I don't owe you any money," Paul Keater shouts.

The people sitting the barstools do not turn to look.

"You're always pulling that **** on me." Keater rushes to the bar, "I PPPAID YOU."

As Delleto watches Keater arguing with O'Malley, the anger grows into the loathing Dell feels for Keater. The suave, sophisticated Paul Keater living in a room above the bar. The man is disgusting. His belly hangs pregnant over his belt. His jeans have fallen exposing the crack of his ***, and Keater just doesn't give a ****. And that ragged, faded, baseball cap, ****, he never takes it off.

When Keater glances down, he realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto. Usually, Paul Keater would have at least considered punching Delleto in his face. "The **** wasn't any good," Paul feining anger tells O'Malley. "Everybody said it was, ****."

The bartender finishes rinsing a glass in the soapy sink water and then places it on a towel. "*******."

Keater slides the Giant baseball cap back and forth across his flat forehead. "**** it," he turns and storms out of the bar.

"Can I get a beer?" Dell asks but O"Malley is already reaching into the beer box. Twisting the cap off, he puts it on the bar. "It's not that Keater owes me a few bucks, "he tells Dell, "if I didn't cut him off he'd do the stuff until he died." Bob grabs a towel and dries his hands.

"But the smartest rats always get out of the maze first," Jack tells Bob.


Cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and losing lottery tickets litter the linoleum floor. Jack Delleto grabs the bottle of beer off the bar and crosses the specter of unfulfilled wishes.

In the adjacent room he sits at a table next to the pinball machine to watch a disfigured man with an anorexic women shoot pool. Sometimes he listens to them talk, whisper, laugh. Sometimes he just stares at the wall.

"We have a winner, "the pinball machine announces, "come ride the Ferris wheel."



"I'm part Indian. "

Jack looks up from his beer. The Indian has straight black hair that hangs a few inches above her shoulders, a thin face, a cigarette dangling from her too red lips.

"My Mom was one third Souix, " the drunken women tells Jack Delleto.

The Indian exhales smoke from her petite nose waiting for a come on from the man with the sad face. And he just stares, stares at the wall.

Her bushy eyebrows come together forming a delicate frown.

Jack turns to watch a brunette shoot pool. The woman leans over the pool table about to shoot the nine ball into the side pocket. It is an easy shot.

The brunette looks across the pool table at Jack Delleto, "What the **** are you starin at?" She jams the pool stick and miscues. The cue ball runs along the rail and taps the eight ball into the corner pocket. "AH ****," she says.

And Jack smiles.

The Indian thinks Jack is smiling at her, so she sits down.

"In the shadows I couldn't see your eyes," he tells her, "but when you leaned forward to light that cigarette, you have the prettiest green eyes."

She smiles.

" I'm Kathleen," her eyes sparkling like broken glass in an alley.

Delleto tries to speak.

"I don't want to know your name," she tells Jack Delleto, the smile disappearing from her face. "I just want to talk for a few minutes like we're friends," she takes a drag off the cigarette, exhales the smoke across the room.

Jack recognizes the look on her face. Bad dreams.

"I'll be your friend," he tells her.

"We're not going to have ***." The Indian slowly grinds out the cigarette into the ashtray, looks up at the man with the sad face.

"Do you have family?"

"Family?" Delleto gives her a sad smile.

She didn't want an answer and then she gets right into it.

"I met my older sister in Baltimore yesterday." She tells the man with sad eyes.' Hadn't seen her since I was nine, since Mom died. I wanted to know why Dad put me in foster homes. Why?

"She called me Little Sister. I felt nothin. I had so many questions and you know what? I didn't ask one."

Jack is finishing his beer.

"If you knew the reasons, now, what would it matter, anyway."

The man with the black eye just doesn't get it. She lived with them long enough. Long enough to love them.

She stands up, stares at Jack Delleto.

And walks away.


It's the fat blondes turn to shoot pool. She leans her great body ever so gently across the green felt of the pool table, shoots and misses. When she tries to raise herself up off the pool table, the tip of the pool cue hits the Miller Lite sign above the pool table sending the lamb rocking violently back and forth. In flashes of light like the frames from and old Chaplin movie the sad and grotesque appear and disappear.

"What the **** are you starin at?" The skinny brunette asks.

Jack pretends to think for a moment. "An unhappy childhood."

Suddenly, she stands up, looking like death wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt.

"Dove sta amore?" Jack Delleto wonders.

Death is angry, steps closer.

"Must be that time of the month, huh," Jack grins.

With her two tiny fists clenched tightly at her side, the brunette stares down into Delleto's eyes. Suddenly, she punches Jack in the eye.

Jack stands up bringing his forearm up to protect his face. At the same time Death steps closer. His forearm catches her under the chin. The bony ***** goes down.

Women rush from the shadows. They pull Jack to the ***** floor, punch and kick him.

In the blinking of the Miller Light Jack Delleto exclaims," I'm being smother by fat lesbians in soft satin pants."  But then someone is pulling the women off of him.

The Miller Lite gently rocks and then it stops.

Jack stands up, shakes his head and smiles.

"Nice punch, Dell," Bob O' Malley says, "I saw from the bar."

Jack hits the dust off of his pants, grabs the beer bottle off of the table, takes a swallow. Smiling, he says, "I box a little."

"I can tell by your black eye." O'Malley puts his hand on his friends shoulder. "Come on I'll buy you a shot. What caused this spontaneous expression of love?"

"They thought I was a ******."


2 a.m.

Jack Delleto walks out the door of the bar into the wind swept gloom. The gray desolation of boarded shut downtown is gone.

The rain has finally turn to snow.

His eyes follow the blue rope from the parking meter pole to its frayed end buried in the plowed hill of snow at the corner of Cookman Avenue.

The dog, Snowflake, dead, Jack thinks.


The snow covers everything. It covers the abandon cars and the abandon buildings, the sidewalk and its cracks. The city, Delleto imagines, is an adjectiveless word, a book of white pages. He steps off the curb into the gutter and the street is empty for as far as he can see. He starts walking.

Jack disappears into empty pages.


Chapter 2


Paul Keater has a room above Wagon Wheel Bar where the loud rock music shakes the rats in the walls til 2a.m. The vibrations travel through the concrete floor, up the bed posts, and into the matress.

Slowly Paul's eyes open. Who the hell is he fooling. Even without the loud music, he would not be able to sleep, anyway.

Soft red neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks into his room.

Paul Keater sits up, sighs, resigns himself to another sleepless night, swings his legs off the bed. His x-wife. He thinks about her frequently. He went to a phycologist because he loved her.

Dump the *****, the doctor said.

"I paid him eighty bucks and all he had to say was dump the *****." He laughs, shakes his head.

Paul thinks about *******, looks around the tiny room, and spots a clear plastic case containing the baseball cards he had collected when he was a boy.

He walks to the dresser and puts on his Giant's baseball cap. Paul sits down on the wooden chair by the sink. Turns on the lamp. The card on top is ***** Mays. Holding it in his hand, it is perfect. The edges are not worn like the other cards.

It was his tenth birthday and his dad had taken him to his first baseball game and his father had bought the card from a dealer.

Oblivious to the loud rock music filtering into his room, he stares at the card.

Fondly, he remembers.

Dad.


                                     *     

It arrives unobtrusively. His heart begins to race faster.
Jack Delleto rolls away from the cracked wall. He sits up and drops his legs off the bed.

Jack Delleto thinks about mountains.

When he cannot sleep he thinks about climbing up through the fog that makes the day obscure, passing where the stunted spruce and fir tees are twisted by the wind, into cold brilliant light. Once as he climbed through the fog he saw his shadow stretching a half a mile across a cloud and the world was small. Far down to the east laid cliffs and gullies, glaciated mountains and to the west were the plains and cities of everyday life.

The army coat is draped over the back of the chair. In the pocket is his notebook. Jack stands and takes the notebook from the pocket. When he sits in the wooden chair he opens the book and slides the pen from the binder.

When he finishes his story he makes the end into the beginning.



                                           Chapter 3


"I want a captain in a truck." The 10 year old boy with the brown hair tells his mom. "I want it NOW."

His blonde haired mom wearing the gold diamond bracelet nods her head at Jack Delleto. Jack looks up at the clock on the wall. It is only 9a.m. After four years of college Jack has a part time job at K.B. Toy store. "We're all out of them," he tells her for the second time.

"Honey," Blondie tells her boy, "they're all out of them."

"YOU PROMISED."

"How about a sargeant in a jeep?

"OK, but I want a missile firing truck , too."

Delleto turns to the display case behind the counter. Briefly, he studies his black eye in the display case mirror and then begins searching the four shelves and twenty rows of 3 inch plastic toys. He finds the truck. His head is aching. He finds the truck and puts it on the counter in front of the boy.

"Sorry, we're all out of the sargeant," Jack tells the pretty lady. The aching in his head just won't go away.

"Mommy, mommy, I want an ATTACK HELIOCOPTER, MOMMMEEE, I WANTAH TTTAAANNNK..."

Jack Delleto leans over the counter resting his elbows on the glass top. The boy is staring at the man with the black eye, at his bruised, unshaven face.

"Well, we haven't got any, GODDAMED TANKS. How about a , KICKINTHE ***."

Finally the boy and his mother are quiet.

"My husband will have you fired."

She grabs the boy by the hand. Turns to rush out of the store.

Jack mutters something.

"MMOOOMEEE,  what does..."

"Oh, shut the hell up," the pretty lady tells her son


                              
     

The assistant manager takes a deep drag on her cigarette, exhales, and crosses her arms to hold the cigarette in front of her. Susan looks down at Jack sitting on the stool behind the counter. He stands up. "Did you tell some lady to blow you?" She crushes the cigarette out in the ashtray on the shelf below the counter. "Maybe you don't need this job but I do."

"Sue, there's no smoking in the mall."

"Jack, you look tired," the cubby teenager tells him, "and your eye. Another black eye."

"I was attacked by five women."

'Oh, I see, in your dreams maybe. I see, it's one of those male fantasies I'm always reading about in Cosmo. You're not boxing again, are you Dell?" Sue likes to call him Dell.

"I go down to the gym to work out. Felix says I've got something."

"Yeah, a black eye." Susan laughs, opens the big vanilla envelope, and hands Jack his check.

She turns and takes a pair of sunglasses from the display stand. "You 're scaring the children, Dell ." Susan steps closer looks into Dell's brown eyes and the slips the sunglasses on his face. "Why don't you go to lunch."

                                        
     

It's noon and the mall is crowded at the food court area. Jack gets a 20oz cup of coffee, finds a table and sits down.

"Go over and talk to him. " Susan says. Jack turns his head , looks back, sees the Indian walking towards his table.

"Hello, Kathrine," says Jack Delleto.

"My names not Kathrine, it's Kathleen."

Jack pulls the chair away from the table, "Have a seat Kate."

Her eyebrows form that delicate frown. "My names Kathleen." As soon as she sits down she takes a cigarette from the pack sticking out of her pocketbook. "I had to leave. I told the baby sitter I'd only be gone an hour. Anyway you weren't much help."

"So why did you come over to talk to me?"

"You were alone, the bar full of people and you're alone. Why?"

"I like it that way. You've seen me there before?"

"Yeah, sitting by the pin ball machine staring at the wall, and sometimes, you'd take out your blue note pad and write in it.
What do you write about?  Are you goin to write about me..."

"Maybe. How many kids do you have?"

"Just one. A boy, and believe me one is enough. He'll be four in June," Kathleen smiles but then she remembers and abruptly the smile disappears from her face. "Sometimes I see Anthony's father in the mall and I ask him if he'd like to meet his son, but he doesn't.

Kathleen draws the cigarette smoke deep into her lungs, tilts her head back, and blows the smoke towards the skylight. Suddenly caught in the sunlight the smoke becomes a gray cloud. " I didn't want to marry him anyway, I don't know why he thought that."

She hears the scars as Delleto talks, something sad about the man, something like old newspapers blowing across a deserted street. She hears the scars and knows never, never ask where the scars came from.


                              
     

As Jack walks towards the bank to cash his check, he glances out the front entrance to the mall. It is a bright, cold day and the snowplows are finishing up the parking lot plowing the snow into big white hills. That is the fate of the big white pup plowed to the corner of Cookman and Main buried deep in ***** snow. At that street corner when the school is over the children will play on the hill never realizing what lay beneath there feet.

The snow must melt; spring is inevitable.

His pup will be back.



                                           Chapter 4


The 19 year old light heavyweight leans his muscular body forward to rest his gloved hands on the tope rope of the ring. He bows his head waiting to regain his breath as his lungs fight to force air deep into his chest. Bill Wain has finished boxing 4 rounds with Red.

Harry the trainer, gently pulls the untied boxing gloves from Red's hands. "Good fight, he says, patting Red on the back as the fighter climbs through the ropes and heads to the showers. Harry hands the sweat soaked gloves to Felix who puts one glove under his arm while he loosens the laces on the other 12ounce glove. He makes the sleeve wider.

"Do you want the head gear?" Felix asks.

Jack Delleto shakes his head and pushes his taped hand deep into the glove.

The old man takes the other glove from under his arm, pulls the laces out, and holds it open. Without turning his head to look at him, Felix tells Harry, "Make sure Bill doesn't cool down. Tell him to shadow box. Harry walks over to Bill and Bill starts shadow boxing.

Jack pushes his hand into the glove. "Make a fist." Jack does. Felix pulls the laces and ties it into a bow.

Felix looks intently into Delleto's eyes. "How does that feel?"

"About right."

"You look tired."

"I am a little."

"Are you sick or is it a woman."

"I'm not sick."

A big smile forms across the face of the former welterweight champion of Nevada. The face of the 68 year old Blackman is lined and cracked like the old boxing gloves that Jack is wearing but his tall body is youthful and athletic in appearance. Above Felix's eyebrows Jack sees the effect of 20 years as a professional fighter. He sees the thick scar tissue and the thin white lines where the old man's skin has been stitched and re-stitched many times. As he gives instructions to Jack, Felix's brown eyes seem to be staring at something distant and Jack wonders if Felix has chased around the ring one time too often his dream.

"And get off first. Don't stop punching until he goes down. You've got it kid and not every fighter does."

Jack and Felix start walking over to the ring.

"What is it I've got?" Jack Deletto wonders.

Felix puts his foot on the fourth strand of the rings rope and with his hand pulls up the top strand and as Jack steps into the ring, "You've got, HEART."

In the opposite corner Bill Wain waits.

"Will he be alright?" Harry asks.

"Bill's tired, " Felix replies, then he tries to explain. "It's not about money. I'm almost 70 and I want to go out a winner." Felix pauses and the offers, he can hit hard with either hand."

"Yeah, but at best he's a small middleweight and he only moves in one direction, straight ahead."

"Harry, I love the guy," Felix puts his hand on Harry's shoulder, he's like Tyson at the end of his career. He'd fight you to the death but he's not fighting to win anymore."

Harry puts his hands in his pocket and stares at the floor. "Do you want me to tell him to go easy." Harry looks up at Felix waiting for an answer.

"I'm tired of sweeping dirt from behind the boxes of wax beans and tuna fish. I'm sick of collecting shopping carts in the rain. A half way decent white heavyweight can make a lot of money. It's stupid for a fighter to practice holding back. Bill's a winner. Jack'll be alright."

Felix hands the pocket watch to Harry so he can time the rounds.

Bill Wain comes out of his corner circling left.

Jack rushes straight ahead.

Felix winks at Jack Delleto and whispers, "The Jack of hearts."



                                           Chapter 5


The front door of the Wagon Wheel bar explodes open to Ziggy Pop's, "YOU'VE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE." Jack Delleto steps over the curb and vanishes into the dark doorway.

"HEY, JACK, JACK DELLETO," The lanky bartender shouts over the din.

Delleto makes his way through the crowd over to bar. How the hell have you been Snake?" Jack asks.

"Just great," says Snake. "You're lookin pretty ****** good for a dead man."

"Who told you that? Crazy George?"

The bartender points across the room to where a man in a pin stripe suit is swinging to and fro from a wagon wheel lamp attached to the ceiling.

"Yeah, I thought so. Haven't seen Crazy George in a year and he's been telling everyone I'm dead. I'm gonna have to have a long talk with that man."

Snake hands Jack a shot of tequila. The men touch glasses and throw down the shots.

How's the other George? Dell asks.

"AA."

"How's Tommy? You see him anymore?"

"Rehab."

"What about Robbie?"

Snake refills the glasses. "He's livin in a nudist colony in Florida, he has two wives and 6 children."


Jack looks across the room and sees Bob O'Malley trying to adjust the rose in the lapel of his tuxedo. Satisfied it won't fall out O'Malley looks up at the man swinging from the lamp. "Quick, name man's three greatest inventions."

"Alcohol, tobacco, and the wheel," Crazy George shoots back.

O'Malley smiles and then jumps up on the top of the bar and although he is over six feet and weighs two hundred pounds, he has the dexterity and grace of a ballerina as he pirouttes around and jumps over the shot glasses and beer bottles that litter the bar.

Wedding guests lean back in their chairs as strangers fearful of his gyrations ****** their drinks off the bar. Bob fakes a slip as he prances along but he is always in control and never falters. Forty three year old Bob O'Malley is Jim Brown who dodges danger to score the winning touch down.

When Bob reaches the end of the bar he jumps to the floor, pulls two aluminum lids from the beer box, and with one in each hand he smacks them together like cymbals.

Some guests clap. The bemused just stare.

In the back of the room sitting at the wedding table the father of the bride leans over, whispers into the ear of his crying wife, "If I had a gun I'd shoot Bob."

The bride raises a glass of champagne into the smoke filled air and Bob takes a bow but then heads towards the kitchen at the other end of the room.

" Hey, Bob," Jack Delleto shouts to the groom.

O'Malley stops under the wagon wheel lamp and turns as Delleto steps into the  circle of light cast onto the floor.

"Congratulations, I know Theresa and you are goin to be happy. I mean that." Delleto offers his hand and they shake hands.

"Thanks, Mr. Cool."

Jack takes off the sunglasses.

"TWO black eyes. Your nose is bleeding. What happened?"

Dell takes the handkerchief from his back pocket, wipes the blood dripping down his face. "It's broken."

"What happened?" O'Malley asks again.

"Bill Wain."

"He turned pro."

"Yeah, but he's nothing special. Hell, he couldn't even knock me down."

O'Malley shakes his head. "Dell, why do you do it? You always lose."

"If you don't fight you've already lost."

"Put the sunglasses back on, you look like a friggin raccoon."

Dell smiles. The blood running down his lips."Thersa's beautiful, Bob, you're a lucky guy."

"Thanks Dell." O'Malley puts his hand on Dell's shoulder and squeezes affectionately. Bob looks across the room at Theresa. "Yeah, she is beautiful." Theresa's mother has stopped crying. Her father drinks whiskey and stares at the wall.

O'Malley looks away from his bride and passed the archway that divides the poolroom from the bar and into the corner. With the lamp light above his head gleaming in his eyes Bob seems to see a ghost fleeting in the far distant, dark corner. Slowly, a peculiar half smile forms uneven, white, tombstone teeth.  A pensive smile.

Curious, Dell turns his head to look into the darkness of the poolroom, too.

At night in July the moths were everywhere. When Dell was a boy he would sit on his porch and try to count them. The moths appeared as faint splashes of whiteness scattered throughout the nighttime sky, odd circles of white that moved haphazardly, forward and then sideways, sometimes up and then down.

Sometimes the patches of moths flew higher and higher and Dell imagined the lights those creatures were seeking were the stars themselves; Orion, the Big Dipper, and even the milky hue of the Milkyway.

One night as the moths pursued starlight he saw shadows dropping one by one from the branches at the tops of the trees. The swallows were soundless and when he caught a glimpse of sudden darkness, blacker than the night, he knew the shadows had erased the dreamer and its dream.

His imagination gave definition to form. There was a sound to the shadows of the swallows in his thoughts, the melody and the song played over and over. Wings of shadow furled and unfurled. Perhaps he saw his reflection in the night. Perhaps there are shadows where nothing exists to cast them.

"Do you hear them, Bob?"

"Hear what?" Bob asks.

"All of them."

"All of what?"

"Shadows," Delleto candidly tells his friend, then, "Ah, Nothin."

O'Malley doesn't understand but it does not matter. The two men have shared the same corner of darkness.

Bob calls to Paul Keater. Keater smiles broadly, slides the brim of his Giant baseball cap to the side of his forehead. The two men disappear through the swinging kitchen door.


                                          Chapter 6


"Hello Kate." Jack Delleto says and sits down. She has a blue bow in her hair and make up on.

"My names Kathleen."

She fondles the whiskey glass in her slim fingers. "Hello, Dell, Sue thinks Dell is such a **** name. Kathleen takes a last drag on her cigarette, rubs it out in the ashtray, looks up at him, "What should I call you?"

"How about, Darlin?"

"Hello, Jack, DARLIN," her soft, deep voice whispers. Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh between the blue ***** hose and the hem of her dress. Kate is drunk and Dell does not care. He leans closer, "Do you wanna dance?"

"But no one else is dancing."

"Well, we can go down to the beach, take a walk along the sand."

"It's twenty degrees out there."

"I'll keep you warm."

"All right, lets dance."

Jack stands up takes her by the hand. As Kathleen rises Jack draws her close to him. Her ******* flatten against his chest. He feels her heart thumping.

The Elvis impersonator that almost played Las Vegas; the hairdresser that wanted to be a race car driver; the insurance salesman with a Porche and a wife.  Her men talked about what they owned or what they could do well.

And Kathleen was impressed.

But Dell wasn't like them. Dell never talked about himself. Did he have a dream? Was there something he wanted more than anything?

Kathleen had never meant anyone quite like Dell.

She rests her head on his shoulder. "What do you what more than anything? What do you dream about at night?"

"Nothing."

"Come on," she says," what do you want more than anything? Tell me your dreams."

Jack smiles, "Just to make it through another day."  He smiles that sad smile that she saw the first time they met. "Tell me what you want."

Kate lifts her head off of his shoulder and looks into his eyes. "I don't want to be on welfare the rest of my life and I want to be able to send my son to college." She rests her cheek against his, "I've lived in foster homes all my life and every time I knew that one day I'd have to leave, what I want most is a home. Do you know the difference between a house and a home?"

"No. not at all"

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear, "LOVE."

The song comes to an end and they leave the circle of light and sit down. Kate takes a cigarette from the pack.

Dell strikes a match. The flame flickering in her eyes. "Maybe someday you'll have your home."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah."

Kate blows out the match.


                                  
     


"Can you take me home?" Kate asks slurring her words.

Kathleen and Jack walk over to where the bride and groom are standing near the big glass refrigerator door with Paul Keater. When Paul realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto he rocks back and forth on the heals of his worn shoes, slides his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead and walks away.

O'Malley bends down and kisses Kathleen on the cheek and turns to shake hands with Dell. "Good luck," says Dell. Kathleen embraces the bride.

Outside the bar the sun is setting behind the boarded shut Delleto store.

"That was my Dad's store, " Jack tells Kate and then Jack whispers to to himself as he reads the graffiti spray painted on the front wall.
"TELL YOUR DREAMS TO ME, TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, IF YOU LOVE ME, TELL ALL YOUR DREAMS TO ME."


                                         Chapter 7


An old man comes shuffling down the street, "Hello Mr. Martin, " Jack says, "How are you?"

"I'm an old man Jack, how could I be," and then he smiles, "ah, I can't complain. How are you?"

"Still alive and well."

"Who is this pretty young lady?"

"This is Kate."

Joesph Martin takes Kathleen by the arm and gently squeezes, "Hello Kate, such a pretty women, ah, if I was only sixty," and the old man smiles.

Kathleen forces a smile.

The thick eyeglasses that Mr. Martin wears magnifies his eyes as he looks from Kathleen to Jack, "Have fun now, because when you're dead, you're going to be dead a long, long time." And Martin smiles.

"How long?  Delleto inquires.

The old man smirks and waves as he continues up the street to the door leading to the rooms above the bar. He turns to face the door. The small window is broken and the shards of glass catch the twilight.

Joesph Martin turns back looking at the man and young woman who are about to get into the car. He is not certain what he wants to say to them. Perhaps he wants to tell them that it ***** being an old man and the upstairs hallway always smells of ****.

Joesph Martin wants to tell someone that although Anna died seven years ago his love endures and he misses her everyday. Joesph recalls that Plato in Tamaeus believed that the soul is a stranger to the Earth and has fallen into matter because of sin.

A faint smile appears on the wrinkled face of the old man as he heeds the resignation he hears in his own thoughts.

Jack waves to Mr. Martin.  Joesph waves back. The mustang drives off.

Earth, O island Earth.


                                               Chapter 8


Joseph pushes open the door and goes into the hallway. The fragments of glass scattered across the foyer crunch and clink under his shoes. The cold wind blowing through the broken window touches his warm neck. He shivers and walks up the stairs. There is only enough light to see the wall and his own warm breathing. There is just enough light like when he has awaken from a  bad dream, enough to remember who he is and to separate the horror of what is real from the horror of what is dreamt.

The old man continues climbing the stairs following the familiar shadow of the wall cast onto the stairs. If he crosses the vague line of shadow and light he will disappear like a brown trout in the deepest hole in a creek.

By the time he reaches the second floor he is out of breath. Joseph pauses and with the handkerchief he has taken from his back pocket he wipes the fog from the lenses of his eyeglasses and the sweat from his forehead.

A couple of doors are standing open and the old man looks cautiously into each room as he hurries passed. One forty watt bulb hangs from a frayed wire in the center of the hallway. The wiring is old and the bulb in the white porcelain socket flickers like the blinking of an eye or the fearful beating of the heart of an old man.

When he opens the door to his room it sags on ruined hinges.

Joesph searches with his hand for the light switch.  Several seconds linger. Can't find it.

Finds it and quickly pushes the door shut. He sits down on the bed, doesn't take his coat off, reaches for the radio. It is gone.

Joseph looks around the room. A small dresser, the sink with a mirror above it. He takes off his coat and above the mirror hangs the coat on the nail he has put there.

Hard soled boots echo hollowly off the hallway walls. The echoes are overlapping and he cannot determine if the footsteps are leaving or approaching.

The crowbar is under his pillow.

He grabs it. Holds it until there is silence.

He lays back on the bed. Another night without sleep. Joseph rolls onto his side and faces the wall.

Earth, O island Earth.



                                           Chapter 9


Tangled in the tree tops a rising moon hangs above the roofs of identical Cape Cod houses.

Jack pulls the red mustang behind a station wagon. Kathleen is looking at Dell. His face is a faint shadow on the other side of the car. "Do you want to come up?" she asks.

Kathleen steps out of the car, breathes the cold air deep into her lungs. It is fresh and sweet. Jack comes around the side of the car just as she knew he would. He takes her into his arms. She can feel his lips on hers and his warm breath as the kiss ends.

They walk beneath the old oak tree and the roots have raised and crack the sidewalk and in the spring tiny blue flowers will bloom. The flowers remind Jack of the columbines that bloom in high mountain meadows above tree line heralding a brief season of sun and warmth.

"Did you win?" Kathleen asks as she fits the key into the upstairs apartment door. The door swings open into the brightly lit kitchen.

Dell, leaning in the doorway, two black eyes, looking like the Jack of Hearts. "It doesn't matter."

"You lost?"

"Yeah."

Crossing the room she takes off her coat and places it on the back of the kitchen chair. When Kate leans across the kitchen table to turn on the radio the mini dress rides up her thigh, tugs tightly around her buttocks.

The radio plays softly.

Jack stands and as Kathleen turns he slips his arms around her waist and she is staring into his eyes like a cat into a fire. His body gently presses against the table and when he lifts her onto the table her legs wrap around his waist.

Kathleen sighs.

Jack kisses her. Her lips are cold like the rain. His hand reaches. There is a faint click. The room slips into darkness. It is Eddie Money on the radio, now, with Ronnie Specter singing the back up vocals. Eddie belts out, "TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT, I WON"T LET YOU LEAVE TIL..."

When Jack withdraws from the kiss her eyes are shining like diamonds in moonlight.

The buttons of her dress are unfastened.  Her arms circle his neck and pull him to her *******. "Don't Jack. You mustn't. I just want a friend."

His hands slide up her thighs. "I'll be your friend, " says Jack.

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear. "*** always ruins everything," He pulls her to the edge of the table as Ronnie sings, "O DARLIN, O MY DARLIN, WON'T YOU BE MY LITTLE BAABBBY NOOWWW."


They are sitting on a couch in the room that at one time had been a sun porch.

Now that they have gotten *** out of the way, maybe they can talk. Sliding her hands around his face she pulls him closer.

"Jack, what do you dream about? You know what I mean, tell your dreams to me."

"How did you get those round scars on your arm?" Dell wonders.

"Don't ask. I don't talk about it. Do you have family?"

"Yeah. A brother. Tell me about those scars."

My ****** foster dad. He burned me with his cigarette. That's how I got these ****** scars.

And when I knew he was coming home, I'd get sick to my stomach, and when I heard his key in the door, I'd *** myself. And I got a beating.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

When they didn't beat me or burn me, they ignored me, like I didn't exist, like I wasn't even there. And you know what, I didn't hate him. I hated my father who put in all those foster homes."



                                             Chapter 10



Spring. All the windows in the apartment are open. The cool breeze flows through her brown hair. "You're getting too serious, Jack, and I don't want to need you."

"That's because I care for you."

The rain pounds the roof.

Jack Delleto sits down on the bed, caresses her shoulder. "I hate the rain. Come on, give me a smile. "Kathleen pulls away and faces the wall.

"Well, I don't need anyone."

"People need people."

"Yeah, but I don't need you." There is silence, then, "I only care about my son and Father Anthony."

"What is it with you and the priest?" You named your son Anthony is that because he's the father."

"You're an *******. Get out of here. I don't love you." And then, "I've been hurt by people and you'll get over it."

Then silence. Jack gets up from the bed, stares at her dark form facing the wall. "Isn't this how it always ends for you?"

The room is quiet and grows hot. When the silence numbs his racing heart, he goes into the kitchen, opens the front door and walks down the steps into the cold rain.


"Anthony," Kathleen calls to her son to come to her from the other bedroom and he climbs into the bed, and she holds him close. The ghost of relationships past haunt her and although they are all sad, she clings to them.


On the sidewalk below the apartment window Jack stops. He thinks he hears his name being called but whatever he has heard is carried off by the wind. He continues up the dark street to his Harley.

High in reach less branches of the old oak tree a mockingbird is singing. The leaves twist in the wind and the singing goes on and on.



                                            
     



The ringing phone. The clock on the dresser says 5 a.m.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Jack, I'm scared."

"Kate? Is that you?"

"Someone broke into my apartment."

"Is he still there?"

"No, he ran out the door when I screamed. It was hot and I had the window open. He slit the screen."

"I'll be right over."



                                         Chapter11


"How hot is it?" Kathleen asks.

The bar is empty except for O'Malley, Keater, a man and a woman.

"98.6," says Jack. The sweat rolls down his cheeks.

"Let's go to the boardwalk."

"When it's hot like this, it's hot all over."

"We could go on the rides."

"I've got the next pool game, then we'll go."

"It's my birthday."

"I bought you flowers."

"Yeah, carnations."

Laughing, Paul Keater slides the brim of his baseball cap back and forth across his forehead.

Jack eyes narrow. He starts for Keater, Katheen steps in front of Jack, puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks into his eyes.

"Who are you Jack Delletto? What is it with you two? But as always you'll say nothing, nothing." As Jack tries to speak she walks over to the bar and sits on the barstool.

"It's my birthday," she tells O'Malley.

When Bob turns from the horse races on the T.V., he notices her long legs and the short skirt. "Hey, happy birthday, Kate, Jack Daniels?"

"Fine."

Filling the glasses O'Malley hands one to Kathleen, "You look great," he tells her.

"Jack doesn't think so. Thanks, at least someone thinks so."

"Hope Jack won't mind," and he leans over the bar and kisses her.

Kathleen looks over her shoulder at Delleto. Jack is playing pool with a woman wearing a black tight halter top. The woman comes over to Jack, stands too close, smiles, and Jack smiles back.

The boyfriend stares angrily at Jack.

When Kathleen turns back O'Malley is filling her shot glass.

Jack wins that game, too.



                                                 Chapter 12



"Daddy," the little girl with her hands folded in her lap is looking up at her father. "When will the ride stop? I want to go on."

"Soon, Darling, "her father assures her.

"I don't think it will ever stop."

"The ride always stops, Sweetie." Daddy takes her by the hand, gently squeezes.


When the carousel begins to slow down but has not quite stopped Kathleen steps onto the platform, grabs the brass support pole. The momentum of the machine grabs her with a **** onto the ride, into a white horse with big blue eyes. Dropping her cigarette she takes hold of the pole that goes through the center of the horse. She struggles to put her foot in the stirrup, finds it, and throws her leg over the horse. The carousel music begins to play. With a tremble and a jolt, the ride starts.

Sitting on the pony has made her skirt ride well up her legs. The ticket man is staring at her but she is too drunk to care. She hands him the ticket, gives him the finger.

The ticket man goes over to the little girl and her father who are sitting in a golden chariot pulled by to black horses.

"Ooooh, Daddy, I love this."

"So do I," The father smiles and strokes his daughter's hair.

The heat makes the dizziness grow and as the ride picks up speed she sees two of everything. There are two rows of pin ball machines, eight flashing signs, six prize machines. All the red, blue and green lights from the ride blend together like when a car drives at night down a rain-soaked street.

Kathleen feels the impulse to *****.

"Can we go on again?" The little girl asks.

"But the ride isn't over, yet."


Kathleen concentrates on the rain-soaked street and the dizziness and nausea lessens. She perceives the images as a montage like the elements that make up a painting or a life. She has become accustom to the machine and its movement. The circling ride creates a cooling breeze that becomes a tranquil, flowing waterfall.

The ponies in front are always becoming the ponies in the back and the ponies in back are becoming the ponies in the front. Around and around. All the ponies galloping. Settling back into the saddle she rides the pony into the ever-present receding waterfall.

You can lose all sense of the clock staring into the waterfall of blue, red and green. Kathleen leans forward to embrace the ride for a long as it lasts.

Just as suddenly as it started, the ride is slowly stopping, the music stops playing.

Coming down off the pony she does not wait for the ride to stop, stumbles off the platform and out the Casino amusement park door. "****, *******," she yells careening into the railing almost falling into Wesley Lake.

She staggers a few steps, sits down on the grass by the curb, hears the carousel music playing and knows the ride is beginning again, and all of her dreams crawls into her like a dying animal from its hidden hole.

And it all comes up from her throat taking her breath away. A distant yet familiar wind so she lies down on the grass facing the street of broken buildings filled with broken people. From the emptying lot of scattering thoughts the mockingbird is singing and the images shoot off into a darkening landscape, exploding, illuminating for a brief moment, only to grow dimmer, light and warmth fading into cold and darkness.




                                      
     

"Your girlfriend is flirting with me," Jack Delleto tells the man. "It's my game."

The man stands up, takes a pool stick from the rack, as he comes towards Jack Delleto the man turns the pool stick around holding the heavy part with two hands.

There is an explosion of light inside his head, Delleto sees two spinning lizards playing trumpets, 3 dwarfs with purple hair running to and fro, intuitively he knows he has to get up off the floor, and when he does he catches the bigger man with a left hook, throws the overhand right. The man stumbles back.

His girlfriend in the tight black halter top is jumping up and down, screaming at, screaming at Jack Delleto to stop, but Jack, does not. Stepping forward, a left hook to the midsection, hook to the head, spins right, throws the overhand right.

The man goes down. Jack looks at him.

"You lose, I win," and Delleto's smile is a sad, knowing one.



                                                  CHAPTER­ 13

"It's too much," and Jack looks up from the two lines of white powder at Bob O'Malley. "I'll never be able to fall asleep and I hate not being able to sleep."

" Here," Bob takes a big white pill from his shirt pocket.

Jack drops the pill into his shirt pocket and says, "No more." He hands the rolled-up dollar bill to Bob who bends over the powder.

"Tom sold the house so you're upstairs? O Malley asks, and like a magician the two lines of white powder disappear.

"Till i find another place," Jack whispers.

Straightening up, O'Malley looks at Dell, "I know you 're hurting Dell, I'm sorry, I'm sad about Kate, too."

"Kate had a kid. A boy, four years old."

Jack becomes quiet, walks through the darkened room over to the bar. Leaning over the bar he grabs two shot glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, walks back into the poolroom. He puts the shot glasses on top of the pin ball machine. "We have a winner, " the pin ball machine announces. Dell fills the glasses.

"Felix came in the other day, he's taken it hard," Bob tells him.
Bill Wain knock down four times in the sixth round, he lost consciousness in the dressing room, and died at the hospital."

"I heard. What's the longest you went without sleep? Jack asks.

"Oooohhh, five, six days, who knows, after awhile you lose all track of time."

They take the shots and throw them down.

"I wonder if animals dream," Jack wants to know. "I wonder if dogs dream."

"Sure, they do, " O'Malley assures him, nodding his head up and down, "dogs, cats, squirrels, birds."

"Probably not insects."

"Why not? June bugs, fleas, even moths, it's all biochemical, dreams are biochemical, mix the right combination of certain chemicals, electric impulses, and you'll produce love and dreams."

                                          
     

Jack Delleto goes into his room above the bar, studies it. The light from the unshaded lamp on the nightstand casts a huge shadow of him onto the adjacent wall. Not much to the room, a sink with a mirror above it next to a dresser, a bed against the wall, a wooden chair in front of a narrow window.

The rain pounds the roof.

The apprehension grows. The panic turns into anger. Jack rushes the white wall, meets his shadow, explodes with a left hook. He throws the right uppercut, the overhand right, three left hooks. He punches the wall and his knuckles bleed. He punches and kicks the blood-stained wall.

At last exhausted, he collapses into the chair in front of the open window. Fist sized holes in the plaster revel the bones of the building. The room has been punched and kicked without mercy.

The austere room has won.

The yellow note pad, he needs the yellow note pad, finds it, takes the pencil from the binder but no words will come so he writes, "insomnia, the absence of dream." He reaches for the lamp on the nightstand, finds it, and turns off the light. Red and blue, blue and red, the neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks soft neon into his room. The sign seems to pulsate to the cadence of the rock music coming from the bar.

Taking the big white pill from his shirt pocket, he swallows it, leans back into the chair watching the shadows of rain bleed down the wall. The darkness intensifies. Jack slides into the night.



                                           Chapter 14


The rain turns to snow.

With each step he takes the pain throbs in his arm and shoulder socket. His raw throat aches from the drafts of cold air he is ******* through his gaping mouth and although his legs ache he does not turn to look back. Jack must keep punching holes with his ice axe, probing the snow to avoid a fall into an abyss.

The pole of the ice axe falls effortlessly into the snow, "**** it, another one."

Moonlight coats the glacier in an irridecent glow and the mountain looms over him. It is four in the mourning and Jack knows he needs to be high on the mountain before the mourning sun softens the snow. He moves carefully, quietly, humbly to avoid a fall into a crevasse. When he reaches the top of the couloir the wind begins to howl.

"DA DA DUN, DA DA DUN, HEY PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND MY BRAIN..."

Jack thinks the song is in his head but the electric guitar notes float down through the huge blocks of ice that litter the glacier and there standing on the arête is Jimi, his long dexterous fingers flying over the guitar strings at 741 mph.

"Wait a minute, " Jack wonders, stopping dead in his tracks. The sun is hitting the distant, wind-blown peaks. "Ah, what the hell," and Jack jumps in strumming his ice axe like an air guitar, singing, shouting, "LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEM THE SAME, IS THIS A DREAM, WHATEVER IT IS THAT GIRL PUT A SPELL ON MEEEE, PURRPPLLE HAZZEEE."


                                        
     


Slowly the door moans open.

"Jack, are you awake?" her voice startles him.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"What's the matter, can't sleep?"

Jack sifts position on the chair. "Oh, I can sleep all right." He recognizes the voice of the shadow. "I want to climb to a high mountain through ice and snow and never be found."

"A heart that's empty hurts, I miss you, Jack Delleto."

"I'm glad someone does, I miss you, too, Kate."

There is silence for several minutes and the voice comes out of the darkness again.

"Jack, you forgot something that night."

"What?" The dark shape moves towards him. When it is in front of him, Jack stands, slips his arms around her waist.

"You didn't kiss me goodbye."

Her lips are soft and warm. Her arms tighten around his neck and the warmth of her body comes to him through the cold night.

"Jack, what's the matter?" She raises her head to look at him, "Why, you're crying."

"Yeah, I'm crying."

"Don't cry Darlin," her lips are soft against his ear. "I can't bear to see you unhappy, if you love me, tell me you love me."

"I love you, I do," he whispers softly.

"Hold me, Jack, hold me tighter."

"I'll never let you go." He tries to hug the shadow.


                                          
      *


The dread grows into an explosion of consciousness. Suddenly, he sits up ******* in the cold drafts of air coming into the room from the open window. Jack Delleto gets up off the chair and walks over to the sink. He turns on the cold water and bending forward splashes water onto his face. Water dripping, he leans against the sink, staring into the mirror, into his eyes that lately seem alien to him.



                                            Chapter 15


Someone approaches, Jacks turns, looks out the open door, sees Joesph Martin go shuffling by wearing a faded bathrobe and one red slipper. Jack hears Martin 's door slam shut and for thirty seconds the old man screams, "AAHHH, AAAHHH, AAAHH."
Then the building is silent and Jack listens to his own labored breathing.

A glance at the clock. It is a few minutes to 7 a.m. Jack hurries from his room into the hallway.  They pass each other on the stairs. The big man is coming up the stairs and Jack is going down to see O'Malley.

Jack has committed a trespass.

When the big man reaches the top of the stairs, the red exit light flickers like a votive candle above his head. The man slides the brim of his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead, he turns and looks down, "Hello, Jack, brother. Dad loved you, too, you know." An instant later the sound of a door closing echoes down the hallway steps.


Jack Delleto is standing in the doorway at the bottom of the steps looking out onto the wet, bright street.

"Hey, Jack, man it's good to see you, glad to see you're still alive."

Jack turns, looks over his shoulder, "Felix, how the hell are you?"
The two men shake hands, then embrace momentarily.

"Ah, things don't get any better and they don't get any worse," shrugs the old man and then he smiles but his brown eyes are dull, and Jack can smell the cheap wine on the breath of the old boxer. "When are comin back? Man, you've got something, Kid, and we're going places."

"Yeah, Felix, I'll be coming back."  Jack extends his hand. The old fighter smiles and they shake hands. Suddenly, Felix takes off down Main Street towards Foodtown as if he has some important place to go.

Jack is curious. He sees the rope when he starts walking towards the Wagon Wheel Bar. One end of the rope is tied around the parking meter pole. The rest of the rope extends across the sidewalk disappearing into the entrance to the bar. The rattling of a chain catches his attention and when the huge white head of the dog pops out of the doorway Jack is startled. He stops dead in his tracks and as he spins around to run, he slips falling to the wet pavement.

The big, white mutt is curious, growls, woofs once and comes charging down the sidewalk at him. The rope is quickly growing shorter, stretches till it meets it end, tightens, and then snaps. Now, unimpeded by the tension of the rope the mutt comes charging down the sidewalk at Delleto. Jack's body grows tense anticipating the attack. He tries to stand up, makes it to his knees just as the dog bowls into him knocking him to the cement. The huge mutt has him pinned down, goes for his face.

And begins licking him.

Jack Delleto struggles to his knees, hugs her tightly to him. Looking over her shoulder, across Main Street to the graffiti painted on the boarded shut Delleto Market...

                               FANTASY WILL SET YOU FREE

                                                 The End

To Tommy, Crazy George and Snake, we all enjoyed a little madness for a while.


"Conversations With a Dead Dog..."
Fenix Flight Sep 2014
Scars on her anckle
scars on her legs
and on the back of her calf

These scars tell a story  

a story of a girl
so fragile
one wrong move
could shatter her
to pieces

long forgotten scars on her arms
a faded cross on her left beciep
her initials clear as day on her leg

These scars tell a story  

A story of a girl
Whose strong and brave
who keeps pushing on
no matter her pain

Scars so fresh
the blood still flows
down her leg

these scars tell a story

The story of me
My scars are mine and mine alone.

My scars shape the person I am today.

My scars will never go away.

My scars are all over my body.

My scars go across my wrist.

My scars are full of pain.

My scars are mine forever.
This is very personal to me. This is what  I and many people face in life today.
Kaka Feb 2016
My scars tell a million stories

The stories of struggle

The stories of persistence

The stories of survival

The stories that made me who I am

The stories of my life..


My scars voice a millions things

They tell me dark days will pass

They ask me to hold on strong

For even the deepest wounds eventually heal

& someday I will be looking at another scar

pondering over the story it yearns to tell.


My scars whisper a million things to me

And I know, Yours do the same.


*“What are your stories behind those scars??

Scars that are etched onto your skin..

& Scars that hide in your heart..”
Lissa Heli Nov 2012
Show me all the scars you have,
and the stories behind them

I want to see the scars on your fingers.
And hear about all the demons you had to fight off with your bare hands.
did you win?

I want to see the scars on your back.
From all the people who have ever hurt you.
And how I vow to not add to that collecetion.

I want to see the scars on your heart.
well i can't see them, but i can assure you i feel them.
those are the scars that hurt the most and im  sure some of those wounds are still open.

And i want to see the scars on your face.
those distinct markings that give you your features.
those marking that say you were not afraid to get up close and get hurt
for a reason you saw fit.

Will you show me all your scars?
I wont try to fix them, i promise.
because i know some of them you hold dear.
you can give me any scar you want though. i want a reminder of you.
i wont flinch, it won't even hurt.
Im used to it, so cut as deep as you want.

Darling, show me all your scars.
Kristi Kaye Jan 2019
Carry your scars
with pride, not shame.

What are scars,
but proof you’ve
survived your wounds,
for wounds
carry no scars,
only blood.

What are scars,
but gold stars for
lessons presented
and conquered.

What are scars,
but evidence you’ve
overcome life’s
most difficult obstacles.

What are scars,
but proof of
your success,
leaving you
not broken
but wiser.
Sometimes Ally Jun 2014
to me
scars are beautiful
they show us where we've been
not where we're going
they remind us of battles
we once had to face

to me
scars make us strong
they paint a picture
of the darkness
you once lived in

to me
scars show us the past
they take you places
of sadness and sin

but look around
everyone has scars
some old
some new
they're all special
to me

— The End —