(Same) Scars
“…I’ll tell her to never regret loving in permanent ink and that scars only give you stretch marks, something to gossip about.”
****
You and I bear the same scars.
But just as I hide my own weapons,
You hide your wounds under your sleeves
Until they are rotting.
I, on the other hand,
I scratch myself in public sometimes
Until everyone knows that I’m not
Afraid to expose my Achilles’ heel,
My soft spots, my bleeding thoughts
Until everyone (mistakenly) thinks I’m
Out there
To unveil whatever they’ve been stuffing
Underneath the sand,
Buring underneath the laughter, the cold water
They pour on those already exposed enough
To not give a damn when they are soaking.
You told me to look after myself,
You warned, though I would not listen,
That the whole world
Loves the sight of fuel, the sight of fire,
Loves to fuel my fire whenever the winds
In my mind are blowing furiously,
Ominously threatening to knock
Down this paper fortress I (pretend to)
Hide myself into.
You and I bear the same scars.
I knew from your silence you were hit
By the same bullets I once opened my chest
To receive.
You and I bear the same scars.
You can tell from the way I explode,
The way I shatter into crystals of tears,
The way I sing ‘all cried out’, the way I cry
Myself to sleep sometimes when there’s
No one there to see me shrink into
The corner of my bed.
I can tell from the way your brittle bones
Crack in the silence that’s engulfing you,
The way the noise in your eyes pierces
The void with its truth, the way your eyes,
Your eyes
They sew and carve their pain
Into the silence.
You and I bear the same scars.
Though we wear them differently.
You and I bear the same scars.
And though we wear them differently,
There was a time when – I swear – I thought
I had just been wearing yours badly.
Forgive me for running away from
This blending of scars when I realised
We were both wounded.
Forgive me for not wearing our scars
Like armour.
You and I bear the same scars so give me
A second chance,
Let me treat your wounds and
Offer you my shaky hands,
You and I, never broken but wounded,
You and I, neither trying to share nor hide
Our scars,
Only forgiving ourselves tonight,
Tonight, old friend,
We are forgiving each other.
Tonight, old friend,
Not yet mended but one step closer,
One step closer,
One step nearer
The Light.
****
PS: “there is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness.” As much as you and I are both creatures of darkness, there is a light somewhere.
Rational Artist 