the battlescars of personal wars
never look or sound all that heroic,
the mental anguish, the internalized trauma, the crippling anxiety
of waking up, getting dressed, and addressing the world
as a thing that doesn’t exist and never did
the curve of a scar can sometimes look like
an upside-down smile wanting
to say something that we’re too shy
to admit to,
but maybe that’s because there is a crime that was committed when we got that scar,
and it’s best to plead the 5th in those sorts of cases
the war path of childhood etches itself into skin
that never wants to fully heal
and looks sunburned whenever examined up close
what could be melanoma, but i’m no doctor
i think, though, that it should probably be look at rather than covered
up in long sleeves soaked in someone else’s blood
dripping down the sidewalk where skateboards pile high
into a mangled pyramid reaching out to an undefined zenith
pointing feverishly at power point slides meant to capture youth
and show the future, or a past
riding as fast and demurely as possible down a hill that redefines gravity
until the moment stops…and bones tear asunder
Fred Aiken Writing 