Invisible scars...

She had tattooed her arm
to stop the cutting,

perhaps by making it beautiful

she might find some peace.

Razor blades are not ink.

Scars a desperate art.

The cutting, the only way

to make her forget, not think.

She liked the sleeve.

A bird, black hearts, two fish,

an almost quote from Lao Tzu:

‘The journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single wish’.

Not a single step.

That was so hard to take.

It sat there speaking wisely,

traced red on chicken skin bicep.

Too many forced steps,

her life a trap,

a scared lemon squeezed,

no time left for any of that,

not going there again.

That is what her adornment was for,

a covering of her past.

She picked up her bag,

shrugged off the door,

she was shedding him at last.

Shredding him at last.

At the station she caught the train,

South, then west for hours.

A little travel for years of pain

that was now her past.

And as she sat she considered

if her thighs and breasts and arse

would be peonies, runes, or stars,

symbols to bring her healing

and hide her invisible scars.