Sharing Our Scars Supports Healing
“There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.” - Harry Crews
Life events create memories, some heartening, others painful. Remembering the celebrations and successes allows us to live every day in anticipation, permits us to dream of the possibilities. However, forgetting the challenges leaves a hole because they teach lessons, build strength, and mold our personalities.
When the past stares us in the face, accept it because everything that happened, forms our identities. It is important to remember that we are not alone in strife. Each person battles personal demons. By remembering this, we develop compassion for others. We all have scars from battles fought. They reside on our skin, our hearts, and in our minds.
Once they are embraced, they can be worn as trophies of a life well lived and battles won.
We Carry Our Scars
I wish a scar marked my forehead
A symbol of my past
Sharing my forever pain
Insatiable emptiness
Not a grotesque wound to arouse a gasp
But a faint image of something once real
Now gone
A reminder that pain resides
Just under my exterior
It’s forgetting that jolts reality
Like an electrical shock
Causing a current of guilt
Creating the illusion, it wasn’t important
It was
A scar would be my billboard
Publicizing my humanity
Saying, “I am like you”
Provoking others to
Pause and wonder what happened
Disfiguring an otherwise flawless façade
A scar might
Create a connection between us
Him over there raking leaves and
The woman I never talk with at the mailbox
Though I wish to forget the injury
It would produce amnesia of identity
The memory sustains my core
Like a ring of growth on a tall oak
Made stronger by each additional year
Maybe just a discoloration
Several inches above my smile
To share my reality
I suffer just like you
Then, maybe when my smile
Doesn’t soften your criticism
Of what I didn’t do
Or did
You will notice I have endured despair
We have life in common
Waking to nightmares
Haunted by dreams in the light
A scar would inform
Of my past
That you never knew
Though I don’t want to talk about it
I want you to care enough
To ask
“What happened in your life
That left a blemish?”
Instead
My scars are inside and unnoticed
Buried by daily events
Abrasive trophies of
Battles fought
Endured
Gone
But just beneath the scar