Reflections of Red

my scars are beautiful

they are scabs that i have picked on

again and again because i have dared enough

to know who i am and who i am

is the biggest scar i have

i bleed to know

how i feel

they have bled until the

surrounding veins the surrounding

capillaries have restricted and healed underneath

my skin and my skin has greatly formed into

markings and my markings

have become reminders

of a world too big

to understand

i have scars from hunger

scars from living a life as a young

arriviste and conniving my way to becoming

self-satisfied happy and radiant in the

glory of my pain till my bones have

cracked and my frame was forged

into steel but I have smiled in the

face of transformation

my scars are beautiful

and they make me smile at craters

and slits that have gathered dirt i have shaken

off letting infections to manifest into bulbous abscesses

i have looked at myself in the mirror

and I have seen myself slowly

disfiguring into someone

i didn't recognize

but you wouldn't know because

all you would see are smiles my wide-toothed

grin reminding you that anger becomes selfishness becomes an act

of arrogant self-indulgence and as my skin wrinkles

from the insides trying to fall out onto the

floor as my face contorts into tears

from scars that take lifetimes

to heal i remember my

scars are beautiful

because i have dared to know who i am

no lesion no wound no scab can change that

and as i scream at the rupturings of my being

you will hear how i carry the world in tune

in melodies akin to instrumental silence