Scars
They were the proof she’d survived.
Facing anyone was difficult, facing someone she trusted added to the intensity of the discomfort. How to explain what marked her... from the scar beneath her knee, received when Steven Jones pushed her into the swamp canal, and she caught it on the broken end of a branch, hauling herself out of the goop to the bisecting scar that crossed her from hip to hip, left after an operation that caused her to loose so much blood, she was as white as her sheets.
How to explain the thin stripes on her back and legs where she’d been punished with rulers belts thin willow branches that stung long after the beating ended. There was the finger...it had been nearly severed after being caught in a car door, and her parents didn't care to pay emergency room fees, so, they taped it back on, and life went on..and she was left with a fingerprint that didn't match up, a finger that was off kilter.
How to explain what marked her internally, the curses and cruelty and devastation that caused her to cut people out of her life, leaving yet another hole that may not ever fill. Forgiving would cause more pain, so, the hole was left to work itself into another scar.
How to explain to someone who’d never known any of this, who had a life blessed by love and good luck. The one who held her heart. They showed how she survived, not badges of courage, but, reminders of life, personal tree rings.
“Look,” she said. “Look and touch and listen...because these are important.”
Facing anyone was difficult, facing someone she trusted added to the intensity of the discomfort. How to explain what marked her... from the scar beneath her knee, received when Steven Jones pushed her into the swamp canal, and she caught it on the broken end of a branch, hauling herself out of the goop to the bisecting scar that crossed her from hip to hip, left after an operation that caused her to loose so much blood, she was as white as her sheets.
How to explain the thin stripes on her back and legs where she’d been punished with rulers belts thin willow branches that stung long after the beating ended. There was the finger...it had been nearly severed after being caught in a car door, and her parents didn't care to pay emergency room fees, so, they taped it back on, and life went on..and she was left with a fingerprint that didn't match up, a finger that was off kilter.
How to explain what marked her internally, the curses and cruelty and devastation that caused her to cut people out of her life, leaving yet another hole that may not ever fill. Forgiving would cause more pain, so, the hole was left to work itself into another scar.
How to explain to someone who’d never known any of this, who had a life blessed by love and good luck. The one who held her heart. They showed how she survived, not badges of courage, but, reminders of life, personal tree rings.
“Look,” she said. “Look and touch and listen...because these are important.”
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