mapping wars in skin

Twenty eight years... Twenty eight years on this planet and I still sit on the edge of my bed counting scars and watching the razor in my fingers gleam. Strange how this piece of sharp metal makes the blood feel like acid in my chest. Cutting loose a neverending seeming stream of red that felt like cool rain on a scorching summer day. I still remember how it feels and how it almost ruined me. It still renders me mute.

Over five hundred count. Still counting even. My flesh now a mapping of guilt, misery and loneliness like fractured and baffled city streets with no traffic lights and a speed limit of 110. Can't feel what isn't there and a head full of bad memories certainly deserves some vacation time.

I kept saying that they were war wounds, from a war where the only soldier was me. Hard to fight nuclear war with yourself nonstop for sixteen years. You get burned out quickly.

Each of these white lines on my arm tells me where I've been when I don't remember.

Every track mark is another reason I can't forget.

And every time I look up at the ones who stayed beside me over these broken years... There is the only truth and proof I keep myself together as a contained toxic spill.

~~~

Another tattoo to build on the topography of life. Shove those road warrior lines beneath the shadow of meaning and memory.

It's been two years. That sharp hasn't touched my skin in so long.

I still have to explain the lattice-work flesh and that's a burdon in itself. Regret is self-evident, but it reinforces the will to better myself.