scars

I am proud of my scars.  I always have been.  Scars, great and small, scars, to hide them all would be tragic.

They tell where this body has been.  They tell where this body will go.

Scars, deep inside my heart, the stop, beating, the stop, beating when it stopped that day I couldn’t start it again, not for a while.

I screamed.  I remember screaming when my heart stopped, beating, when it stopped, beating, I screamed.

I remember screaming, but I did not hear the scream.

The roaring in my ears was the sound of my heart, roaring, when it stopped, beating, just for a little while.

I didn’t even hear the words “Your mother’s dead,” but instead, received a nod when I asked.  My father couldn’t tell me, his daughter, because he remembers scars, too.  He had to tell someone to tell me on the phone.

I wasn’t there, another scar.  And then, on the plane, home, crying.

Now, a year later I still cry.  I woke up, crying, woke up, screaming, the scars too painful, not faded, the white lines etched in my skin, on my heart.

She’s gone, they whisper.  She’s gone.

And you didn’t get to say goodbye.

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