The Scars I Don’t Share
-for RP
Because I’ve come to love you,
and because you remind me of the one who healed me,
I’m okay with showing you the scars that I don’t share.
It’s not shame that keeps me from sharing them,
it’s the reliving of memories that have been 6 feet under
for years. It’s just… I don’t want you to look at me
as wounded. I don’t want you to assume I’ll become
the monster that tore me limb from limb as a child.
I don’t want you to associate me with what I was labeled:
worthless, unlovable, a total screw up
I don’t want you to analyze that the chemistry
that runs between us on a level 10 was forged by
something Freudian.
Yet, tonight I’ll open up the skeletal contents:
the reason why I’m afraid of tennis rackets,
why I threw my baseball glove in the lake.
The original reason I cut my hair to resemble a boy’s.
Why I have exactly two reminders of childhood:
a baseball and a tie my grandfather wore on Easter.
